That's Mr. Jindal in the brown shirt in the middle of this crowd as we arrived at the airport in Raigahr, India, where he owns the steel mill and the airport and lots of the town. As you can see from the photo, when he comes to town, he garners lots of attention. If you study the body language and position you notice that India has a way of showing true respect for the boss. The ex-pat that is the farthest away and facing back towards the camera in a white shirt is my friend from last summer at the guest house, named Jasper Marais, and he is from South Africa and is in charge of the construction of the coal-gasification power plant that is being built. Many of the other white shirts in this photo are either fixed-wing pilots or helicopter pilots. As we arrived, Mr. Jindal briefly instructed what was happening that day and then climbed into the waiting helicopter to take him onsite to another project that he is working on. I snapped this photo shortly after he climbed off the jet I was flying and before he got into the helicopter. I thought it was just an interesting snapshot of a day in the life of one of India's true industrialist's fueling the growth and positioning himself to benefit from the tremendous expansion of India's economy.
During this week I have had in the back of my mind that while I was looking at the Himilayas out the window of my jet from 41,000 feet and thinking that this is the time of year for Mt. Everest climbs, I wondered what kind of year it was. On May 24th, 2004, a personal friend of mine from Chattanooga, TN, Scott Graham, an attorney and pilot for a development and construction company, took a few months out and at age 44, climbed Mt. Everest successfully that year. I really enjoyed my time flying with and talking to Scott, and so became more than casually interested in the stories from that mountain. Sadly, I see from the news this year that a great, young man from Scotland, 28 years old, fulfilled his lifelong dream to climb Everest this year and then died while descending the mountain on May 26 of this year. It gives me a strange feeling to know that I was looking out my window at that very area on that very day and this man was there. I looked up some of the statistics about Everest and I saw that a 69 year old man tried and died climbing the mountain recently. I will content myself to look out the window and see it. I hope to travel to Katmandu while living here and even go up to Base camp just to see it. Scott, my friend from Chattanooga, is well on his way to climbing all of the tallest peaks on the 7 continents in his lifetime. When I last visited with him he had done South America, Africa, Everest and was in pursuit of the others. Nice legacy, expensive hobby, interesting life. Interestingly, Scott lives on Lookout Mountain, TN, USA and his friends and neighbors own the Rock City tourist attraction that has advertising signs all over the country. They offered Scott 10,000 USD to carry a silk flag to the top of Everest and unfurl it for a picture at the top of the world (See Rock City). He took and successfully completed that challenge. I was impressed, after all, do you know anyone who has climbed Everest? 29,029 feet above sea level, I cannot believe when I am flying at FL290 that I am even with the top of the mountain. Just to keep Scott's head screwed on straight, he has a lady who climbs every mountain that he does and they complete these climbs at the same time. So, it's not a power thing, it's an adjustment to high altitude and lack of oxygen and acclimatizing your body to such conditions, plus having luck with weather and conditions at the top of the mountain. I still remember Scott saying that his brain felt like mush for almost 6 months after he came down off the mountain. It really does affect you.
Karen is traveling to the USA as I write this. She left the apartment this morning at 2 a.m. in order to be on time and processed for her flight which left Delhi around 5 a.m. Three hours seems like a lot of time but when you are going international, time just flies while you are going through customs, processing your boarding and being scanned for the 3rd time. At least this time she will enjoy the benefits of business class. I can't wait to talk with her when she gets to America. I know it's a horribly long trip. She will be nearly 15 hours in flight from Abu Dhabi to Chicago and has 3 hour layovers in Abu Dhabi and Chicago. Sometimes, with international travel those 3 hour layovers can evaporate in a hurry if there is some kind of delay. She has been in the air for hours and it will be 10 more before she lands.
My brother had his birthday yesterday, my son has his birthday and anniversary in the next week and some friends here have their birthdays soon. My friend Ulyana, from Ukraine, has her baby due this week so I hope it's born on Brad's bday, on the 8th. We had a big thunderstorm blow by here about 30 minutes ago so summer and monsoon season might be a little bit early this year. Last year I arrived simultaneously with the monsoons on June 29th. They were late and weak last year, hopefully, they will get plenty of rain this year.
We had an unexpected visitor at the apartment yesterday in the form of a small lizard. It fell to the floor and our smallest kittie cat promptly ate it. Karen and I were both shocked, as the other cats pretty much ignored this little guy. Poppy wasted no time in making an extra meal out of this one. We know Jupy, our white cat from Pennsylvania, would have done the same thing. He wasted no time in trying to get any bug or rodent that dared to intrude in his territory. Poppy still is very small and probably doesn't weigh a pound yet, so it was kind of surprising.
Hope you are all doing well. Thanks for your notes and letters. Karen returns on July 15th, so I will be counting the days. She actually told me that coming back to India to see me and the kitties would be the favorite part of her trip to America and back. I asked her yesterday and was pleased with the reply, since she seems to be adjusting so well.
My contract is renewed and we have our visas extended for now. I am working on the paper work for extending my India pilot's licenses and adding the new plane. That should be done within a month and my license from last year is good until July 15 so we have a little time.
Take care,
Dan
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