We were accommodated in the Cukurova 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 center of attraction when we moved outside. Ladies were curious as to know how this
saree having six-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 sightseeing and small purchases.
As Mrs.Pamela and Prof. Richardson had been in
Turkey for several 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.
Adana Lake near University
The people in Turkey were very nice.
The Turkish people used to say Pakistanis are their brothers( Kardesh) 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 with them. 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 elderly ladies appeared to be fat but
strangely the incidence of heart problems among the Turkish
people was 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
Lira and if we were not careful in
converting it to hard currency as soon as we get or salary, we used to lose USD
50 or more 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, 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 were doing
their MRCP/ FRCS in UK,
who promised to accommodate us in a
place called Coventry, three hours bus trip by National Express from
London. We were fortunate to visit Warwickshire and the memorial of William
Shakespeare ( the bard of Avon) . In London we saw British museum,
Madame Tussaud’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, Niagara
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.
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
their university in Cyprus was planning
to start a new department in Electrical & Electronics Engineering
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, financial 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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