Day 7 - American College Concert

---

It’s Saturday! Hurray! A bit of rest and time to myself…unfortunately not, today’s cultural adjustment involves getting used to the 6 working day week. Off to the office as normal. It’s amazing how quickly something different can become “normal”!

I managed to sleep through the alarm this morning and woke dangerously late - after quickly showering and dressing I left my room to find the “too helpful” Mary waiting with my breakfast and a welcome coffee, in theory I’m 30 minutes late for breakfast but Mary insisted on keeping things warm for me! Not sure if I can smuggle her back to the UK but if I could I would.

A fairly quiet morning in the office, Ganesh has had to travel to Chennai today on business so I’m pretty much left to my own devices. No bad thing as Mr Thulasiraj has dropped a 200 page Price Waterhouse Coopers report on my desk to review and feed into my assignment. Oh joy!

Lunch proved interesting. You meet completely random people at the table in the guest house and today it was two ladies from Tibet. One of whom was raised in India and spoke pretty good English. She, Noma, is a project manager looking after a project to build a new 50 bed eye care hospital in southern Tibet. Her travelling partner was DR … an senior Ophthalmic Surgeon who is here to learn from the surgeons in Aravind.

Noma provided me with a small insight into the challenges, mainly political, facing them in Tibet. The levels of oppression that they are subject to on a daily basis by the central Chinese authorities. You see things on the TV or in the newspapers but when it’s occurring thousands of miles away it never quite seems real - it’s so different when you talk to people for whom it is part of their daily lives.

I was invited to join some faculty members at a coral concert being staged at the American College in Madurai this evening. The college was formed over 130 years ago by American Missionaries, hence the American College. It is one of Madurai’s most illustrious seats of learning and where my host obtained his Masters in Business Administration.

An unusual but entertaining evening - I had not expected to be sitting in an Indian University Hall, surrounded by high class Indians, listening to a choir, also 90% Indian, singing American, Scottish and Irish songs - O’ Danny Boy though to Over the Rainbow! A bit surreal to be honest.

The audience split its attentions between the concert, conversations on their mobile phones and conversations with their neighbours! I have witnessed this same behaviour in the UK from Indian’s and always considered it rude, however I now realise it’s accepted behaviour here and not viewed as being offensive.

The performance was interesting, performed with discipline but not feeling or understanding for the music. I am sure the same would be true for an English group if it were performing Tamil music. There were some unusual musical arrangements also, a Hawaiian guitar solo in the middle of Edelweiss! Very Alpine!

---

Photos

Concert Ticket
Another ticket!