Salary the ultimate seduction - Swift it came and Swift it went - Ethiopian Journey - Blog Post no - 52.

It was the first of December 2002, and we received our first salaries. For most Indians salary day was the day that they waited with baited breath. They had come to Bahirdar mostly for the salary and they simply could not wait to receive and send it off by SWIFT (a banking software that entailed faster delivery of Demand Drafts to India). Our bank was Commercial Bank of Ethiopia, whose office was at the market, next to Papyrus hotel.

The tricky part was instead of paying the expatriate teachers in dollars the university paid in Birr. So it was a double whammy. Our salary was first converted from dollars to Birr. We again converted the birr into dollars. This double conversion meant that we lost quite a lot, but there was nothing we could do.

If anything could make life miserable for the expatriate teachers, it was the sheer boredom of existence. Life was alright for people with their family but for bachelors and forced bachelors it was a painful existence. There were limited entertainment avenues and in 2002, laptops, mobiles and smartphones were unheard off.

So the triple whammy of being alone, limited food choice and lack of entertainment drove many to despair and tears. I have seen many a professor who broke down and wept copiously. A faculty member etched in my mind is Dr.Brahmaiah who joined BDU in the chemistry department. Dr.Brahmaiah was a government lecturer from Warangal. He came to Bahirdar only to have foreign teaching experience. He found life to be tough. He missed his family terribly.

He would come home and spend some time with us. By then we had started Thursday evening Sai Baba Bhajan programme.  Dr.Brahmaiah was one of our regular visitors on Thursdays along with Dr. Srinivas, Dr.T.N.Murty, Dr.Neelima and Dr. Kuldeep. After one session of bhajan, we sat down to have the Prasadam. Before we knew, we were all gossiping, about – what else?.... other Indian teachers, The students and everything else……..

Suddenly Dr.Brahmaiah got up. His face was flushed. He excused himself and left abruptly. We were all taken aback. His house was quite near. I went to his house. He was glum and quite upset “Sir, what happened. Did we do anything wrong?” I enquired.

He spoke. His voice was heavy and he had a faraway wistful look. “Ledu ledu (no, no) sir. You did not do anything wrong. For me  your house is a temple. You live there with your wife and children. I get solace in your house and I could not bear the gossip that was being thrown around, merrily. The atmosphere was getting vilified. That is the reason why I left”. I was touched. I rushed back home and told the others what transpired.

My colleagues too were thunder stuck. From that point onwards, gossiping at my house died down and Dr.Brahmaiah had a shine in his face whenever he visited our house.

My Mother's book of short stories - M.Hemalatha Kathalu

I gifted him my mother’s book (M. Hemalatha Kathalu). He once came home and his face was puffed and he was very teary-eyed. He congratulated me for being Hemalatha gari son. He found the stories to be excellent and down to earth.

Unfortunately he did not stay with us, for long. One of his prized possessions that he took from Bahirdar was the book - M. Hemalatha Kathalu. Our four years at Bahirdar gave us experiences that others would not even get in a life time.

Dr. Azaz Ahmed suggested that we buy a Color TV. Seeing my hesitation he added “Sir, don’t worry. There is a very good resale value for electronic goods in Bahirdar”. I bought a 29” SONY television set. It costed 3000 birr (16,500 rupees).   I also bought a VCD player for around 300 birr. I had a huge collection of Telugu and English movie CDs that I had bought from India.

But the VCD was not enough. The local television programmes were all in Amharic which was totally alien for us. Most Indians at that time bought INSAT satellite dishes. But the INSAT Satellite dishes were costly; around 3500 to 4000 birr and they could only beam down DD channels. 

So I opted for ARABSAT satellite dish. The dish was small and could be installed on the roof. The INSAT satellite dish was huge and needed a large area like a portico or a corner in a garden for installation. The ARABSAT satellite dish costed me 1850 birr and the installation cost would be another 150 birr.

ARABSAT would give us mostly Arab and English programmes. We could enjoy American sitcoms like “Tele Tubbies, Full House, America’s Funniest videos and Tom and Jerry”. ARABSAT also was telecasting Hindi movies once in a while. 

Soccer too was popular but we could only watch La Liga, the Spanish Football league. English Premier League matches were too expensive and ARABSAT would not telecast EPL matches. EPL matches were available and they were telecast on Super Sports which had a hefty monthly subscription rate. We had opted for free channels and not for paid channels.