I’ve read that were you to turn all the dogs of the world loose allowing them to breed at random that within a few generations an animal of about 35 pounds with short brown hair would become the dominant breed. The writer lived in the temperate zone and apparently expected dogs to become extinct in any but the lands of warm weather. However that may be, that 35 pound animal is a pretty good description of the Indian street dog. When you come from the West and have seen what we call a stray, to look at these eastern dogs who haven’t strayed anywhere except into the world without anyone to care from them, it is surprising to see how challenging it is to live. Scrounging will feed a dog but when you see their ribs beneath the mange, you know that these dogs were not born under a lucky star.
The first dog I saw in India upon landing at night at Calcutta International in 1967…well I’m not sure if it was a dog or not. In the dim runway lights and the random landing lights of taxiing aircraft, I saw an animal of 35 pounds etc. but with ears of a jackal. Since I’ve not seen a dog with ears that size it may have been some species of wild dog. (Update: India does have jackals and hyenas as well.)
As I’ve written before, garbage is informally deposited sometime out of sight and sometime in plain view and the birds, monkeys, cows, and dogs scavenge. On the earlier trip, my wife and I stopped the holy city of Varanase, site of the burning ghats. Hindus advance in their quest for heaven by dieing, being cremated, and have their ashes being deposited in the River Ganges at the holy city. The burning ghats along the river look to stay busy round the clock, round the year. A huge amount of wood is needed to burn the corpses and that all has to be brought from upriver. If you operate a crematorium, obviously you want to get the most burned body for the least logs of firewood. Like the compact car that Tata is about to unleash on the road system in India, the operator builds compact pyres. There is much in the way of ritual in boiling off the water and burning off the volatiles of a dead person before you finally reduce it to ash. But the operator moves at his quickest when a long body drops a foot or toe out of a short pyre. The dogs, several of them move in quickly, for what must be an awfully hot piece of meat. Seeing the dogs run off with part of the departed upsets the family and while the Untouchable, who is officiating over the cremation may behave as arrogantly as alpha monkey, he makes a genuine effort to reach the body part before the dogs get to it. It’s a matter of professionalism.
Another time somewhere in central northern India where I sat in a third class train carriage with my elbow sticking out in the air conditioner – the open window, we’d stopped for lunch and a fellow passenger was returning to the carriage with what might have been masala dosai. Image a piece of thin bread perhaps 18 inches across folded and holding some spicy potato salad. Both of us had to imagine that because a raven stooped out of thin air, grabbed a piece of lunch and struck the man in the face and me on my elbow with his wingtips. We both jumped back but the dog, which had been more aware of what was going on than humans lost in reveries, jumped forward to grab the falling masala dosai. The dog and the bird had done this before. They were a team. And neither dog nor raven seemed bothered by the spice.
Upon returning to India in 2007 I used the dogs as a measure of prosperity. They seemed to be eating better. The hair was still short, often made shorter by mange, but the ribs were tucked beneath a lay of fat.
On arriving in 2007 in Goa, the gray-maned crows glided over the state capital, Panaji. I wondered if they were the cousin of the masala dosai robber or whether I had confused ravens with crows. The cows were about but the dogs were always of interest. I had a question. How do they survive in this traffic? When I was a child in Texas, dogs ran lose and just about every one of them died by being slammed by a bumper of a fast moving car. Sled dogs in Alaska had no idea how to behave in traffic whether in harness or out for a lark on their own, courtesy of a snap that froze open. Driving through any town in Queensland was an adventure straight out of “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.” I was the bomber pilot and the Luftwaffe fighting canines strafed my attempt to complete my mission. I was advised by other drivers dealing with the packs of maniacs that one locked his foot onto the accelerator so as not to change speed and steer straight down the street. Dogs growled at the wheels and disappeared before the bumper. You never needed to honk. The dogs’ barking announced your location at any moment. But in India here I was in some of the heaviest traffic I’d ever experienced and the dogs navigated just fine although some move with a permanent limp. Of course the street is as Darwinian as the East African savanna. I saw the survivors but how did they become the fittest?
When life crowds the roads, dogs file behind pedestrians. In order to run down the dog, you have to take out a few humans as well. Another island of safety is directly before or behind a parked car. Of course the dog must be aware that the car may move. But no one will ram a parked truck. I can’t remember if I’ve seen the dogs trail a cow or not. The cows have a cabinet-level office that protects them from extermination. The dogs have no such political pull. It could be that they don’t make up enough of a constituency. And so cow, motorcycle, truck, auto, 1.2 billion Indians and I jam the street. As you probably know, in India they maintained the British perversity of driving on the left but it’s not something you want to bet life or limb on. Whether it is modernity or Indian creative driving, traffic may come at you on the left, the right, dead center, or from behind. And should there be a break in the traffic, vehicle operators use this opportunity “to blow out the carbon.” I never saw a speed limit in sign in an urban area. The government has better ways of spending its money. (Another update: there are no urban speed limits. And the Germans thought they invented the limitless limit!)
If you talk dog it’s a natural urge to reach down and scratch a dog behind the ear. With no program for vaccinating you keep your hands in your pocket. Should a dog show up with an owner, then you get a chance to talk dog with the owner and talk dog with your fingertips in the dog’s fur. There are two pettable dogs - a little white dog who is an official greeter at the hospital and a teacher at Kodaikanal International School who owns a dog that is always leashed in the street. Hanging out with a dog is good for the soul. With the street dogs as with dogs Eskimos raise, you can avoid dog talk. The dog doesn’t expects it but then there is the exception.
Shabarat, a manager of a shop on Anna Salais, and I sat on the front steps planning his future, increasing his skill with English, and comparing our views of the world. He has a guy working for him who is called an assistant primarily because he (the employee) often needs assistance. So the assistant interrupted us for an uncountable time and Shabarat jumped up to go put out some little fire that the guy set. I was left to contemplate the passing traffic when a dog, possibly over one year old but not beyond two, walked up to where I sat. This was not your usual street denizen with short hair. He looked more like a sled dog than an off breed jackal. I’d seen him several times hanging out in what passes for a sidewalk café. The hair and mask showed a different ancestry. He did not belong to one of Kodaikanal’s older lineages nor did he behave like a street dog.
So he came over, tail wagging, and put his head in my lap. When I left the States, I had a string of Thou-shalt-nots a good deal longer than Moses’ list. My list included not eating salads, eating nothing from a food stand on the street, don’t drink the water. Certainly I was not going to pet any of these dogs. Here I had a near-grown pup flopped down beside me, cadging pets. He had a streak of lube down his back and his fur was gritty. He was a mess. He lay down beside where I sat and rolled his head over in my lap. Half his right ear was missing. The wound had healed. He particularly liked my working my fingers in behind either ear.
By now I ran through the scenarios of a mad dash by taxi to Madurai to get rabies shots and was now into the question of how can I get shuck of this dog? He gently gnawed on my hand and then my leg. He found where I keep my wallet in my front right pocket and chewed on that for a while. It is hard to believe that this pup came off the street. He must have been abandoned.
Shabarat came out of the store, saw the dog curled up against me and jumped back as if out of disgust. The young man is planning to immigrate to London. If he is to fit in, I’d have to talk to him about an Englishman’s attitude toward his dog.
I backed up. It could be that the dog would lose interest. He knew a dog whisperer when he heard one. He came forward. I got up to walk into the shop. What kind of street dog comes into shops? This one does! Shabarat was about to have a fit! I backed out of the shop, blocking and pushing the dog with my legs. There’s nothing to do but leave so I shouted a good bye and walked off toward the hotel and the sidewalk café where I’ve seen the dog lounging with the Israelis. He might drop off there for a visit.
Anna Salai is a narrow street that runs through, I guess, what could be called the middle of town. When drivers right angle park both automobiles and “two wheelers (motorcycles,) then double park behind that combination, the street becomes even narrower to become a one way of about fifteen feet wide. When the traffic ahead of the driver clears out and it becomes “his way,” the driver hits the gas and runs for it. I’m walking on the right supposedly facing the on-coming traffic, which doesn’t exist if you are on a one-way street with the one-way switching about every minute. The dog trots ahead of me and a little to the left. I’m walking as close as I can to the double parked cars. A white car hits the gas as it passes me and catches the dog in the left shoulder, spinning him around and at the same time snaps the left back leg. I don’t know what I hollered but there were several of us who saw what happened and had something to say. With the dog turned head to tail, he limped, yelping with every breath, back in the direction we had come. I walked on and followed the car to where it parked. The passengers got out. They were surely upset and then the driver got out, palms up saying in Tamil of which I don’t know how to say hello, “He ran right out in front of me!” And I said in English to the driver and passengers, who may know how to hello but not good bye, “Had it been a kid… You are the one responsible!”
They walked back the way we came, I walked on toward the hotel, and in the distance I could hear the dog yelping. I felt like a rat curled up in my belly and died but why? I needed to put things in perspective. What’s a dog’s welfare worth?
Just before the dog joined me on the steps of Shabarat’s shop, I’d been reading in The Hindu (February 10) an editorial on how the Israelis have fenced in Gaza, disallowing food, medicine, fuel, and other necessities. This is in retribution for the Hamas rocket attacks across the border. The editorial’s statistical source is an Israeli human rights group called Btselem. The rockets have killed 13 Israelis since their introduction in 2000. In 2007 two Israelis were killed. In the last two years Israeli “security forces” have killed 816 Palestinians, nearly a quarter of them kids. For this January add another 60 people dead. The point being that I wasn’t in a good humor when I began slipping along the bumpers and fenders of the parked and double parked cars. So with Israel’s killing at that rate, what’s the worth of the life of a stray dog? I’m walking in sunshine, breathing mountain air but the world is as rotten as the surface of this street with little thought of design, no maintenance, and jammed with us. I will be glad when I can no longer hear the dog.
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Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Friday, February 22, 2008
A Talking Library and Butler English
The Talking Library and Butler English
In sizing up a place to retire for all or part of the year, the list of necessities runs something like this:
Inexpensive, a place where I can live on less than a thousand a month.
Good Climate, no more falling down in snow ruts. No broiling as I did in Goa.
Perhaps not everyone will speak English but there will be those who can serve as contacts in case of some need or other. I don’t mind learning another language but the place where I’m stopping off will really have to be special for me to invest that kind of energy. To resurrect my Spanish, is not out of the question.
A town or if it turns out to be a city, must have a neighborhood where I can get to know people.
A place where learning is in evidence, a college town will do.
A banking system that works.
Access to a good hospital.
And a library.
Running down the list, Kodaikanal’s virtues put it on the short list. It is inexpensive. The longer I live here, the more I appreciate the climate. It snows in the Himalayas. Tamil is the language but every week I meet someone else who is proficient in English. While the “town” is twice the size of Sitka, it’s scattered and only becomes a little crowded on Market Day (Sunday.) To date, I’ve made little contact (positive anyway) with an educational institute. That is partly my fault. And it could be that on this side of the world, schools from K. to Ph.D. are off limits to the public. There is a hospital here. And that leaves the library. The Tamil library is open for a few hours for about five or six days a week. The English portion of the library is wanting. There is a school library at Kodaikanal International School run by a professional librarian(s) but it is not open to nonmembers of that enclave. Finally there is KMU. The K is for the town, the U is for Union, and I’ve already forgotten what the M is for. I remember now, “Mission.” Well, that sounds better than “Fellowship.”
This library was started by missionaries during the Raj and has been collecting books in English that travelers, expatriates, and anybody else decides to leave behind. Missionaries contributed religious books by the bushel. Many of those books were sold off to allow for more room. The bad news about the library is that it is open only twice a week. The good news is that it does have encyclopedias and dictionaries and other reference books to keep you straight when you don’t have access to Google and Wikipedia. But the great news was told to me by Margaret, “This is a talking library.” In Sitka the children have their own glassed in corner of the library, where the noise produced by their enthusiasm does not interfere with the adults’ trains of thought. At KMU there are no children. The “kid” is the drama teacher from KIS and she may retire sometime in the next ten years. We don’t have to stay behind glass and we are invited to talk about anything that comes to mind.
Grace comes to mind. She is about to celebrate her 100th birthday. She got her first job out of school during the War (World War II) as a journalist. Her first story was about the removal of the children of London to the safety of the countryside. Grace walks with a cane and sometimes topples over. When she’s talking to you, she needs no cane and there is no stumbling.
Mark, her son, has run a construction company in the U.S. but will more than likely recall his work as a director of Earth Day activities. He is seriously interested in the arts and he and I have something else in common. We like to talk, usually at the same time. Mark has been good enough to read a couple of my stories and comment on them. He has bought a piece of property out of town and intends to build. The country is wild and he occasionally has earlier tenants drop by, elephants. His other project at the moment is to renounce his British citizenship, the country of his birth, and to carry an Indian passport. He has Vikings on both sides of his family, no Indians, has a Johnny Carson accent, but he is tired of being a foreigner. India is his home.
Dudley is an accountant from Great Britain, who while being an ethnic Indian, has “come home” to get better acquainted with his roots, buy property, raise a little coffee, and retire.
Clarence is a consultant on South Asia. He’s taught and been an advisor on projects. He invited me up to his four acres and his large, very pretty house where he and his wife and family live. He seems to enjoy building almost as much as he does his studies.
Like Margaret, most the people who drop in for a visit, have some connection with KIS on whose land the library is located. It seems that many people take a look at where they are in the world and remember “Kodai” where they once were, either as students or teachers and come back to where the eucalyptus reaches for the sky. It is a congenial and well educated group and an easy bunch of people with whom to relax and visit.
People talk about their properties since building is either going on or they are about to begin. We talk about literature and the arts as well. Then we always talk about where we live and what problems arise. Sometime it is the requirement that all long term residents (not citizens) must leave India for a day every six months. I don’t believe that these seasonal absents will enter my short list of problems that irritate me. Nothing like highway/urban roads and drivers, electrical power failures, and always the rubbish.
One day I asked what the meaning of “butter English” was. Foreheads wrinkled and I tried again, “Butler English.” What had happened was that a young man called Nagaraja had knocked on my door one evening and wanted me to tell him what I thought of his plan to immigrate to Australia. I was still dressed and was reading so I told him to go back to his room and I’d come talk to him.
Once settled he asked me what I thought of his paying an agent $2,500 U.S. to place him in a job in Australia. A person working in a call center in Bangalore makes about $10,000 per annum and is considered middle class. I doubt if Naga makes half that. I told him with all certainty that he would be scammed, that he could fulfill any requirement as for immigration himself and with that kind of money, he could have plenty of change left over to begin his life in his new country. I outlined a plan that I would use were I he and he listened. I tell anyone interested in entering country that language is the first requirement. While I thought I could understand him pretty well, he would not be able to hold a job where skill with English was a major concern. He has been trained in the care and feeding of ATM machines. He travels around for a large bank here and has a year and a half experience to his credit. It would not surprise me that somewhere in Australia, they might need this skill and there is not much of a language requirement.
We had another conversation a few days later and I saw a different side of him, a very bitter side. No one likes to take the responsibilities for their short comings but he said that upon entering school, he was asked his caste. He told them and was enrolled in a class with low expectation. And with a third rate education, whatever English he learned was of low quality. He told me that they had been taught “butter English.” What he meant to say and what I was supposed to hear was “Butler English,” a grade of the language which would serve to get him a job as a house servant. The “l” was missing.
This was a pronunciation and a vocabulary clear enough for a memsahib to understand. But then when one Indian speaks Butler English to another, it becomes a language with its own grammar and pronunciation. I’ve said several times that, “I am from Ah-med-ee-cah.” I’m told by one member of the Talking Library that my problem in understanding Indians is that they speak Reserve Standard (BBC English) rather than the English I’m more accustomed to, the American pronunciations. The Queen will not say, “ower” for “over” nor will anyone in the U.K. except another Indian. Indian English is an animal in its own right. While I have no difficulty in someone beginning a new language, if the purpose of the new language is to communicate with the older one, then one has to pronounce the letter “v” like the older one or the older one has to recognize that “lower” is really “lover.” And then there is the problem of those words ending in “ed.” Have you hug –ed or kiss-ed your kid today? I make no defense for the screwed up spelling system we have. We are second only to the French in dumfounding the foreigner but Butler English needs work.
When I brought the Butler English matter up at the library, it was if I’d poured water on a hot stove top. Lots of steam and skidding droplets going in all directions. Everybody seemed to agree that since South Korea decided 50 years ago to spend 10% of GNP on education that today South Korea reaps the benefits in a high standard of living. By the way in Butler English the word “percent” and is pronounced something like “person.” Try substituting “person” for “percent” and see what your listener thinks. India opted for half the “person” of South Korea and today public schools in India teach neither the local language nor the “foreign” language well. I put it in quotes because that foreign language has lived in India for 200 years…not only among the butlers but prime ministers.
On one side of the stove the argument went that since the language of the land and its literature is Tamil then the effort should be made in that direction. On the other side of the stove the idea went that if the students were to go on into any technology, the emphasis should be on English since that is the language of medicine, the example given.
When talking one on one, the lines of reasoning seem easier to follow. And since I’m the new boy on the block, knowing these people is great value. They’ve been thinking “Indian” in some cases as long as I’ve been thinking “Alaskan.” Their advice is very helpful.
The library is open Wednesday and Saturday from 11 AM to 1 PM. Margaret and Roy reshelf the books. Somebody has to do it. But the couch and easy chairs are occupied by people talking about what’s on their minds today. Ideas are traded; information is swapped. Those are two hours that pass much too quickly.
#
In sizing up a place to retire for all or part of the year, the list of necessities runs something like this:
Inexpensive, a place where I can live on less than a thousand a month.
Good Climate, no more falling down in snow ruts. No broiling as I did in Goa.
Perhaps not everyone will speak English but there will be those who can serve as contacts in case of some need or other. I don’t mind learning another language but the place where I’m stopping off will really have to be special for me to invest that kind of energy. To resurrect my Spanish, is not out of the question.
A town or if it turns out to be a city, must have a neighborhood where I can get to know people.
A place where learning is in evidence, a college town will do.
A banking system that works.
Access to a good hospital.
And a library.
Running down the list, Kodaikanal’s virtues put it on the short list. It is inexpensive. The longer I live here, the more I appreciate the climate. It snows in the Himalayas. Tamil is the language but every week I meet someone else who is proficient in English. While the “town” is twice the size of Sitka, it’s scattered and only becomes a little crowded on Market Day (Sunday.) To date, I’ve made little contact (positive anyway) with an educational institute. That is partly my fault. And it could be that on this side of the world, schools from K. to Ph.D. are off limits to the public. There is a hospital here. And that leaves the library. The Tamil library is open for a few hours for about five or six days a week. The English portion of the library is wanting. There is a school library at Kodaikanal International School run by a professional librarian(s) but it is not open to nonmembers of that enclave. Finally there is KMU. The K is for the town, the U is for Union, and I’ve already forgotten what the M is for. I remember now, “Mission.” Well, that sounds better than “Fellowship.”
This library was started by missionaries during the Raj and has been collecting books in English that travelers, expatriates, and anybody else decides to leave behind. Missionaries contributed religious books by the bushel. Many of those books were sold off to allow for more room. The bad news about the library is that it is open only twice a week. The good news is that it does have encyclopedias and dictionaries and other reference books to keep you straight when you don’t have access to Google and Wikipedia. But the great news was told to me by Margaret, “This is a talking library.” In Sitka the children have their own glassed in corner of the library, where the noise produced by their enthusiasm does not interfere with the adults’ trains of thought. At KMU there are no children. The “kid” is the drama teacher from KIS and she may retire sometime in the next ten years. We don’t have to stay behind glass and we are invited to talk about anything that comes to mind.
Grace comes to mind. She is about to celebrate her 100th birthday. She got her first job out of school during the War (World War II) as a journalist. Her first story was about the removal of the children of London to the safety of the countryside. Grace walks with a cane and sometimes topples over. When she’s talking to you, she needs no cane and there is no stumbling.
Mark, her son, has run a construction company in the U.S. but will more than likely recall his work as a director of Earth Day activities. He is seriously interested in the arts and he and I have something else in common. We like to talk, usually at the same time. Mark has been good enough to read a couple of my stories and comment on them. He has bought a piece of property out of town and intends to build. The country is wild and he occasionally has earlier tenants drop by, elephants. His other project at the moment is to renounce his British citizenship, the country of his birth, and to carry an Indian passport. He has Vikings on both sides of his family, no Indians, has a Johnny Carson accent, but he is tired of being a foreigner. India is his home.
Dudley is an accountant from Great Britain, who while being an ethnic Indian, has “come home” to get better acquainted with his roots, buy property, raise a little coffee, and retire.
Clarence is a consultant on South Asia. He’s taught and been an advisor on projects. He invited me up to his four acres and his large, very pretty house where he and his wife and family live. He seems to enjoy building almost as much as he does his studies.
Like Margaret, most the people who drop in for a visit, have some connection with KIS on whose land the library is located. It seems that many people take a look at where they are in the world and remember “Kodai” where they once were, either as students or teachers and come back to where the eucalyptus reaches for the sky. It is a congenial and well educated group and an easy bunch of people with whom to relax and visit.
People talk about their properties since building is either going on or they are about to begin. We talk about literature and the arts as well. Then we always talk about where we live and what problems arise. Sometime it is the requirement that all long term residents (not citizens) must leave India for a day every six months. I don’t believe that these seasonal absents will enter my short list of problems that irritate me. Nothing like highway/urban roads and drivers, electrical power failures, and always the rubbish.
One day I asked what the meaning of “butter English” was. Foreheads wrinkled and I tried again, “Butler English.” What had happened was that a young man called Nagaraja had knocked on my door one evening and wanted me to tell him what I thought of his plan to immigrate to Australia. I was still dressed and was reading so I told him to go back to his room and I’d come talk to him.
Once settled he asked me what I thought of his paying an agent $2,500 U.S. to place him in a job in Australia. A person working in a call center in Bangalore makes about $10,000 per annum and is considered middle class. I doubt if Naga makes half that. I told him with all certainty that he would be scammed, that he could fulfill any requirement as for immigration himself and with that kind of money, he could have plenty of change left over to begin his life in his new country. I outlined a plan that I would use were I he and he listened. I tell anyone interested in entering country that language is the first requirement. While I thought I could understand him pretty well, he would not be able to hold a job where skill with English was a major concern. He has been trained in the care and feeding of ATM machines. He travels around for a large bank here and has a year and a half experience to his credit. It would not surprise me that somewhere in Australia, they might need this skill and there is not much of a language requirement.
We had another conversation a few days later and I saw a different side of him, a very bitter side. No one likes to take the responsibilities for their short comings but he said that upon entering school, he was asked his caste. He told them and was enrolled in a class with low expectation. And with a third rate education, whatever English he learned was of low quality. He told me that they had been taught “butter English.” What he meant to say and what I was supposed to hear was “Butler English,” a grade of the language which would serve to get him a job as a house servant. The “l” was missing.
This was a pronunciation and a vocabulary clear enough for a memsahib to understand. But then when one Indian speaks Butler English to another, it becomes a language with its own grammar and pronunciation. I’ve said several times that, “I am from Ah-med-ee-cah.” I’m told by one member of the Talking Library that my problem in understanding Indians is that they speak Reserve Standard (BBC English) rather than the English I’m more accustomed to, the American pronunciations. The Queen will not say, “ower” for “over” nor will anyone in the U.K. except another Indian. Indian English is an animal in its own right. While I have no difficulty in someone beginning a new language, if the purpose of the new language is to communicate with the older one, then one has to pronounce the letter “v” like the older one or the older one has to recognize that “lower” is really “lover.” And then there is the problem of those words ending in “ed.” Have you hug –ed or kiss-ed your kid today? I make no defense for the screwed up spelling system we have. We are second only to the French in dumfounding the foreigner but Butler English needs work.
When I brought the Butler English matter up at the library, it was if I’d poured water on a hot stove top. Lots of steam and skidding droplets going in all directions. Everybody seemed to agree that since South Korea decided 50 years ago to spend 10% of GNP on education that today South Korea reaps the benefits in a high standard of living. By the way in Butler English the word “percent” and is pronounced something like “person.” Try substituting “person” for “percent” and see what your listener thinks. India opted for half the “person” of South Korea and today public schools in India teach neither the local language nor the “foreign” language well. I put it in quotes because that foreign language has lived in India for 200 years…not only among the butlers but prime ministers.
On one side of the stove the argument went that since the language of the land and its literature is Tamil then the effort should be made in that direction. On the other side of the stove the idea went that if the students were to go on into any technology, the emphasis should be on English since that is the language of medicine, the example given.
When talking one on one, the lines of reasoning seem easier to follow. And since I’m the new boy on the block, knowing these people is great value. They’ve been thinking “Indian” in some cases as long as I’ve been thinking “Alaskan.” Their advice is very helpful.
The library is open Wednesday and Saturday from 11 AM to 1 PM. Margaret and Roy reshelf the books. Somebody has to do it. But the couch and easy chairs are occupied by people talking about what’s on their minds today. Ideas are traded; information is swapped. Those are two hours that pass much too quickly.
#
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