Consultancy Colleagues

One of the joys of this job is the people you meet-not just the clients. In my last post I spoke about the Pompey fan. He is staying in another hotel to me-perhaps a wise precaution, because one can only give and take so many insults.....

My own hotel mates are Robert, a German from Heidelberg and Samir, from Dehli. Both, interestingly American educated in part, Robert in New Orleans and Samir in Houston. Robert has excellent English, Samir excellent American. Both are about 40, so I am most definitely the old man of the party.

Samir can eat for India; although, let us say, of regular size he has the most enormous appetite. He eats with us in the evening but he will probably already have snacked on half a chicken before he gets to the table. Big breakfast, lunch, nibbles on the hoof, everything. Then, possibly something from room service late at night. Amazing!

He has been making up for Robert who, unluckily, has had a dose of Dehli belly, something that has so far eluded me. He had three days out, surviving on chicken soup, for another hearty eater, but as I write this he is starting to rev up again.

Our hotel is about 10 minutes drive from the office and we get picked up and dropped off every day by the office driver, Amin, or one of his colleagues. I say 10 minutes loosely. It can take an hour or so, with traffic conditions as they are. And even a long drive like that is kept to the minimum by Amin's extraordinary skill. He weaves in and out of traffic inch-perfect, missing trycicle rickshaws and tuktuks and somehow squeezing out the big 4 x 4s that are the big shots' mode of transport. This precision driving is assisted by thin bull bars which are attached to every car and which give just that little bit of extra security. Because collissions are inevitable. Not much chance of injury though-it's absolutely impossible to go more than 30mph in the city.

Whilst I was working yesterday Robert and Samir went into the Old Town for a recce-and came back saying that Gulshan, our neighbourhood, is almost empty compared with downtown. Difficult to believe, because here there are people and vehicles everywhere.