75.Six months in Cukurova University

We were accommodated in the university guest house for the first   two weeks and afterwards had to find an accommodation in the town Adana. With help from some younger colleagues, we could get a flat in the town. We had to purchase almost everything including furniture and utensils. However, life in Adana was very peaceful and enjoyable.  The people around the town were very nice and my wife with her silk saree and red bindi   was always the centre of attraction when we moved outside. Ladies were curious as to know how this saree having 6-8 meter length is worn by her. Many kids used pluck away the bindi  from her brow and  we had  to get packets by parcel from home. She had excellent company to move around. Mrs.Pamela, wife  of Prof.Richardson from UK  who was  my colleague and Mrs,Khadeeja, wife  of the  Head  of the Department  Prof.Suleiman were  excellent  company for her  to move around the  town for sight seeing and small purchases . As  Mrs.Pamela  and Prof. Richardson had been in Turkey  for a few years, they  knew  excellent  Turkish and my wife could  manage  with  her English in communicating with her. Mrs.Khadeeja  did not know  English, but somehow they formed nice trio   in moving around  the town.

In the department, I was asked to give a course  in Control  Systems for the  pre-final years. Students were attentive even though their English was not so good. I found out that most of the standard text books in Control Systems   like   Automatic Control Systems by Benjamin Kuo and  Modern Control Engineering by Ogata were  available  in Turkish. When I asked some teachers whether it has been translated under copy right, they were asking me what is copy right which was very interesting.  Students used to copy implicitly what we write on the board and faithfully reproduce in the answer books during examinations. In addition  to Prof.Richardson, we had a few more colleagues  from other countries  like Ukraine, Russia and Germany  working in our own department. All  of them had  hundreds of questions  on India and our ancient culture.

The people  in Turkey were  very nice. The Turkish people used to say Pakistanis are their brothers( Kardesh) ren and Indians are  our friends(Arkadash) . Many of the youngsters knew who is Mahathma  Gandhi and they hand seen the  movie by Attenborough on Gandhi. They had personal copies  of CD   on the  movie withthem. A few of them asked  me why he was wearing  only one cloth and why he threw  away his cloth to a poor  lady while  taking bath  near Godavari  in a particular  scene  in the movie. Ladies, especially students are beautiful. Many of the elder ladies were more fatty but strangely   the incidence of heart problems among the Turkish people is very low. Their liberal use of olive   oil for cooking is one reason for the low incidence of heart problems, it seems.  During lunch and dinner, they eat a lot of salad items and for some us, if we eat all the salads that they serve, we will not be able to eat our main dish which normally will be served last.  During the winter, barbeque (kabab) parties were very common and they used  to eat the  half burnt  meat pieces with relish along with  hard  bread pieces  which may even cut our skin inside the mouth.

Turkey at that time was reeling under the pressure of very high inflation. The International monitory Fund(IMF) had come out with timely help and millions of dollars  were  given as loan at the  beginning of every month  based  on the report of a representative of IMF residing  in Ankara. Even if this money is delayed by a few days, Turkish lira will take a very deep plunge and recover when the IMF money is released. We were all paid in Turkish currency and if we were not careful in converting the lira to hard currency as soon as we get or salary, we used to loose USD 50   in a few hours.  Agriculture being the main  source  of income, food items  were cheap but other  items were expensive. The salary we received was just enough to live there and the situation was such that if we had to travel home, we had to borrow money from our children in USA. There  were  a few  people (less than 1 %)  who could control  the economy. Every citizen could  maintain   bank accounts  in any currency and   this   minority  which includes most of the politicians too  could control  the inflation  by manipulating  their  million dollar accounts as they please. As things were  not very rosy, we  were  planning to return to India.

However, before that, during the first summer vacation we decided to go to or children in Boston (USA)  from  Turkey instead  of going  back to India. On the way, we spent a few days  in UK also. Some friends  of our son was doing their  MRCP/ FRCS in  UK, who   promised  to accommodate us  in a place called Coventry, three  hours  bus trip in National  Express   from London. We were fortunate to visit the Warwickshire and the memorial of William Shakespeare ( the bard  of Avon) . In London we saw British museum, Madame Tussard’s Wax museum, etc during the  few days   we spent there. From London, we flew to Boston and we spent two three weeks with them and  visited New York,  Nayagara and   a whale watch   tour in the Atlantic where  the hunchback whales  were almost dancing  right in front of us.  After the vacation we returned to Turkey with bagful of Basmati rice as good quality rice was not available in Turkey.

Before  we  went   on our Anglo American tour,  I had talked  to my friend  in North Cyprus  who had invited  me to Turkey and discussed about the  inflation. He had promised me that they in Cyprus was planning to start a new department in Electrical &  Electronics Engg and if the  proposal  comes through, I can be  appointed there. True to his word, on our return after vacation, my friend invited me to  set  up the  new  EEE  department  in European University  of Lefke  in the  Turkish  Cyprus. Being a  private  university, terms  were  more attractive and half the  salary was  to be paid in GBP  or USD. So,   we decided  to move to Cyprus.

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