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