As per the offer from my friend Prof. Balasubramonian who was the Dean of Engineering, European University of Lefke, North Cyprus, we decided to move out of Adana to Lefke, a small township in the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus. There was no direct flight to Ercan, the only airport in N.Cyprus. We had to go to Istanbul and then travel to Ercan. Moreover, we had a lot of luggage including some of the bags of Basmati rice we brought from Boston. On enquiry, we found that the most convenient transport available to N.Cyprus from Adana was by a ferry from the port of Mersin about 85 KMs from Adana. So, we booked our tickets and started disposing off our belongings like furniture and other things. We had paid the rent for the whole year and no refund was available. There were no takers for the furniture and so we left it to some poor people staying near our flat. We took the essential utensils and other things which itself added to more than 8 or 9 bags. Even though we were in Adana for only 6 months, we had made lot of friends including a Malayali lady from Chalakudy who got married to a Turk, an Iraqi doctor, short guy who was taking care of his two grown up sisters and his brother from the allowance he was getting from the government for his studies, my wife’s friends, Mrs.Pamela and Mrs.Khadeeja and of course my own colleagues Turkish and other foreign friends from Russia, Ukraine and Germany. It was difficult to bid farewell to them but we had to leave as with the type of inflation existing in Turkey then, it was not possible for us to continue there.
A convenient tempo van brought us to Mersin with
our luggage. We boarded the big
ferry which was almost like a big ship with
facility for carrying several cars inside. But as we
started our journey first time on the sea,
things were pretty bad. The air conditioner was
not working and many men and women started vomiting
due to sea sickness. My wife was
also caught in the group and were using
the plastic bags provided by the crew. After a
few bouts, she was lying on my lap till end of the journey for about
five hours to the Northern part of
the Cyprus island. Fortunately , Prof
Bala had arranged the university vehicle to carry us to
the flat the university had provided to
the faculty near the university
campus. Both of us were to tired and
took rest for the day.
History of North Cyprus
Cyprus is an island lying South of
the mainland Turkey about 300 KMs away.
This island was the haven for pirates for
a long time but later became part of
the empires of Egypt, Rome and Byzantine . People from
Turkey in the North and Greece in
the West and South started migrating to
the island. Since the British were ruling
the seas due to their naval power, ultimately
Cyprus became a British colony. Copper was
available in the island and many Copper mines
started functioning there. In 1960, Cyprus was given independence under
a tripartite agreement. As there was minor friction
between the Turkish Muslims and the Greek
Christians, the tripartite agreement nominated Turkey as the guardian
of the Turkish Muslims and Greece as the guardian which
safeguards the interests of
the Christians. Great Britain remained
as the third party in
the agreement who also took the role of the arbitrator
in case of a dispute between the
two.
Things went on for a few years without trouble
until Archbishop Makarios became the President of Cyprus. He
started easing out the Turkish Muslims from many
government posts including police in favour of Christians
and several laws were enacted depriving
the Muslims of their legitimate
rights guaranteed under
the constitution. This was opposed
to by Turkey and Bishop was warned not to do
that. However, the clergyman continued his purging of
Muslims when Turkish army and air force personnel virtually landed
in the Northern part of Cyprus and the Turkish Muslims
greeted them with both hands.
Turkey declared the Northern part
of Cyprus as Republic of North Cyprus. However,
United Nations intervened and the new republic was not
recognised by UNO. A no-man’s land or buffer zone was
created between the two regions and UN soldiers were
posted to avoid bloodshed. UN declared an
embargo on North Cyprus. Due
to this embargo, North Cyprus could not market their produce
like citrus fruits and fruit products and people were living on
whatever the Turkish government gave them for subsistence. The
only country that recognised this Republic of North Cyprus was Pakistan. A
few families had their relatives working in Germany, UK
etc and they were able to get some support.
The only industry thriving in North Cyprus
was education with several private
universities like our European University of
Lefke, another was Cyprus American University and off shore campus of Middle
East Technical University (METU) of
Turkey etc. These private universities
were getting large number of students from the gulf countries and
even from the very rich people in mainland Turkey.
Reasonably high fees were collected and they could pay
better salaries for the faculty. That is how I
was offered a reasonably good remuneration. As
these universities were not dependent on Turkey
for their income, they could give us at least
half of our salary in hard currency USD or GBP and we could manage to live
with the other half given in Turkish lira. A fully
furnished flat with gas and
essential utensils, fridge and microwave oven
were provided for the faculty living there, mostly foreign
nationals. We used to buy essential goods from
the military canteen once in a week in an old
Renault car one of the professors had
purchased. His son was also studying in the Computer
Science department. Life in Cyprus
was satisfactory with friends from
the different nationalities. We had two Pakistani
students who became regular visitors in our house. As my wife could
speak Hindi reasonably well from our stay in New Delhi, they
used to chit chat with her for quite some time. The boys Zaheer and
Imran both from Sindh province in Pakistan used to
bring cassettes of the latest Hindi movies
and share it with us. They were telling that the people
of Pakistan are not too much against people of India and the rivalry may be
short duration like when they see an Indo Pak cricket or hockey match and
otherwise no problem. The people
near the border were totally dependent on television and
radio from India . It is only the political leadership who rake up
the Indo-Pak rivalry whenever they
face problems within their country.
At the end of the
first semester in Cyprus, we decided
to return to India for the
vacation. When we reached home, we
were welcomed with the happy
news that our daughter
in law is on the family way. As she had
the usual problems of morning sickness
etc we decided that my wife
will remain with our daughter
in law so that I had to return to
Cyprus alone.
So, for the first time, I had to be
alone after getting married. The problem when
we live in an alien land alone is the food.
Food is available from the university canteen, but if we take it
regularly for a few months, we will become fat in no time.
Even getting a vegetable sandwich
was difficult. Mostly only
chicken or steak sandwich used to be available.
Fortunately, my wife had given me a set
of recipes’ so that I can cook my
food. Several packets of masala powders proved very
handy. In my younger days at home, my sister and
myself used to cook our food when our mother was ill and
so I had to brush up my old cooking habits. Fortunately, most of our
colleagues in the faculty apartments
were cooking own food. I had an
ideal company in Dr. Bala, our Dean whose family (wife
and daughters) was in Coimbatore and was also
alone. My experiments on cooking were
supported by recipe’s kept
below the gas oven and whenever I had some
doubt, I used to call my wife and clear my
doubts. Simple European
breakfast with bread butter jam
and omelette was regular. As we had winter
timings, classes were over by 2PM,
we used to cook our
lunch after the class hours. Dr.Bala and me
used to exchange our sambaar and rasam somehow, we
managed to keep our stomach quiet without adding much body
weight.
As we used to collect our grocery from
the military canteen once in a week , usually on
Saturday mornings, most of the major
cooking was on the weekends. As we had an
excellent fridge and a microwave oven , we used
to buy chicken for the whole week and keep it
cooked in the refrigerator and
whenever required used to defrost it in the
microwave before eating. Practically there was no power
failure and the refrigerator was very good, there was no question of
food getting damaged. We even celebrated one Onam,
with Dr.Bala making excellent rasam and
aviyal and me sambaar and thoran with payasam made of
vermicelli and milk of excellent quality
available in plenty from our neighbours. From
my experience, I used to advise my students interested in
going abroad to learn their engineering well, at the same, learn
how to cook your essential food from
your mother. Otherwise, you will either
starve or become too fat very soon.
McDonald and KFC, you
can have once in a while, but if you
make it your regular food, you will soon end up with
obesity, hypertension etc.
I continued in North
Cyprus for another semester and was thinking of
renewing my contract for third semester when I heard that Regional
Engineering Colleges are being renamed as National
Institutes of Technology with full academic autonomy, direct funding and control of
the Ministry of Human Resources Development of Government
of India. NITs were made autonomous institutions which
could conduct their own examinations and award
degrees to the students like IITs. As I was part of the
REC from 1969 to 2002, I thought it is not
fair on my part to keep myself away from the institute during the
transition from REC to NIT . I wrote an email to the Principal
telling that even though I had six more months’ leave remaining,
I am ready to re-join the college if you feel that my services are
required for the college He wrote back “ Of course, we
want people like you as strong pillars on which to
build our NIT. Please come back as soon as
possible.” Believing his words, I returned to India
cancelling part of my leave. However, on my
return I had nothing to do academically in NITC
other than as a professor in EED as the Director(
former Principal) had put his own stooges as Dean
Academic (UG) and Dean (PG Studies & Research).
Probably he was playing a trick on me for
getting the leave sanctioned against his wish
to go to Turkey. NITs were required to implement credit
system from the beginning. Many
members of faculty were not aware of
what a credit system means other than converting marks to
grades. I had been working abroad in two
universities where credit system was in vogue ,thought
that I could contribute something in
the framing of the rules and regulations of
the newly formed NIT Calicut.
At least temporarily I was
denied the opportunity. A professor from
a non-engineering department was appointed as
Dean(UG) and a close friend
of his in Mechanical department as Dean ( PG&SR).
Having practically nothing to do in
the department, I started on
my first text book on
Control Systems , “Modern Control Engineering” , a text book useful
for the second course in Control
Systems in BTech syllabus
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