Saying Goodbye to India

Our journey home...

Waiting for our driver.

After dinner on Friday we headed to the airport to begin our journey home. Our flight departed at 12:30 AM on Saturday (3:00 PM Friday in Ohio), and we touched down in Columbus at 9:15 AM, a total of about 18 hours of travel. Whew!

It is good to be home. I'm definitely feeling tired (a combination of sleep deprivation and jet-lag I suppose), but I already find myself missing India and our friends there. We learned so much about the wonderful people and rich culture, and we have deepened our relationships and understanding of our business partners. What a fantastic experience!

 Thanks for following us on this journey via the blog. I had hoped to add a few additional posts, more specifically about the food (delicious!) and about driving/traffic (definitely not like the US!), and I may still if time (and jet lag) permits.

New Delhi

On Thursday we left Chennai and flew to New Delhi. We arrived after dark, but since our time there was short, we still took in a few of the local sites, such as the Qutub Minar, India Gate, and Lotus temple. (Sorry, not too many pictures due to the time of day.)

Qutub Minar, built c.1199 

On Friday we toured the Apatara facilities in Delhi. We met with Deepak Kumar, Samarendra Belapurkar, and several of their team leaders. Along with a tour of the facilities, our discussions included workflow, media technology and eLearning capabilities, and quality control systems. We also viewed a demo of the most recent version of Power X Editor. Very informative discussions and demos!

Deepak and E. Mae outside the Aptara office. 

The office space at Aptara.

The traffic in Delhi was as interesting as Chennai.

Our workday ended with a delicious south India meal with Deepak and Samar. We wish we could have had more time in New Delhi! 

Last Day in Chennai

Thursday was our last day in Chennai with our friends at Laserwords. We had just enough time to visit a few more sites (and do a little shopping) before leaving for the airport.

Kapaleeswarar temple, situated in Mylapore a suburb of Chennai. The main deity, Lord Shiva, is worshipped as Kapaleeswarar and the Goddess as Katpahavalli.

The National Shrine of St.Thomas Basilica is built over the tomb of the Apostle St.Thomas. 

Our driver for the week, Scint, a man with infinite patience and nerves of steel. He was amazing!

Wednesday at DLF

Sorry for the delayed posts, the past couple of days have been very full with much to do and see.

On Wednesday, we were back at Laserwords DLF facility for a day of discussions and presentations. Here is a photo of the building where their office is housed. Very contemporary and well equipped.

While at this facility, we had the opportunity to see a demo of the new version of the IPF, the Enterprise Management Solution (EMS). Laserwords has made some great improvements to the system, facilitating greater efficiency and expanded project flexibility. We also were presented overviews of Laserwords XSLFO, ePub, and iPad app capabilities. All very informative discussions.

We ended late in the day with dinner at a rooftop restaurant where we were entertained by a spectacular electrical storm.

Back to Adyar

Today we again visited the Laserword facility at Adyar to continue our more in-depth discussions with the team there. Here are a few pictures of the building itself.

Our discussions today included product development services related to assessment, ebooks, and interactive games. We also had a more in-depth discussion with Dass about the creative and technical art processes and tracking, and had the opportunity to spend a bit more time with the art team. We also learned more about their XML conversions and workflows, and their quality control initiatives and CMMI certification process. All very interesting discussions.

A Bit More of Pondicherry

Here are a few more images from our trip to Pondicherry.

On the way to Pondi!

Another view of the market and temple.

E. Mae being blessed by the elephant.

Bart being blessed by the elephant.

Bart and Sandeep at the museum.

We visited a small community outside of Pondicherry named Auroville. This unique community, founded in 1968 by spiritual leader Mirra Alfassa, is very interesting, and a little hard to define. Residents are expected to lead a spiritual life, but there are no specific religions. "A place for trying to find one's conciousness," Auroville belongs to humanity as a whole. Here is a link to their website if you'd like learn more: http://www.auroville.org/index.htm

Matrimandir, "The Mother's Shrine," at the center of Auroville. 

Laserwords DLF Facility

Today we visited Laserwords' second facility in Chennai, located in the DLF office park. This is the facility where the School Publishing group is located, the teams that handle all of our production work, as well as the teams that develop and support for the IPF, Authoring Tool, and other technology solutions.

Some of the Laserwords team our welcome ceremony, Jayashree, Raja, Kandappa, Joshua, and Munroj.

We were taken on a tour of the facility and were able to meet several members of the teams assigned to our product development.

Raja and a few of the compositors working on our TGs

Raja's team working on TG pages.

Joshua, and a few of the compositors working on TMs

Joshua's team working on TM pages

Raj, Jayashree, and some of the IPF development and support team.

Our discussions today centered around the current IPF system, and improvements that have been made over the past months. We also discussed production processes, both IPF and traditional, and ways to improve efficiency for both of our companies. Finally reviewed a new archive and retrieval system that Laserwords has developed to help their clients organize existing assets for retrieval and repurposing.

We ended our day by going to a local movie theater and watching new "Bollywood" film, Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (English translation: Won't Get Life Back Again). If you've never seen one of these films (I hadn't but E. Mae had) you'll have to check it out. Very unique and entertaining!

Tomorrow we return to the Laserwords Adyar facility. More to come!

Pondicherry

Today we travelled 150 kilometers south of Chennai to a city named Pondicherry. During the drive, we stopped along the way to sample young coconuts, called "tender coconuts." Our friends told us that the water of a tender coconut is very nutritious, helping the body fight the heat and offering many other health benefits. (They were right, check it out on the internet!) The water was crystal clear, and lightly sweet.

Jayashree picking out the perfect tender coconuts.

The drive to Pondicherry (also know as Pudicherry) took about a 3 hours. Located on the Bay of Bengal, the town was originally founded as a French settlement, the French quarter still reflects the French culture uniquely blended with the native Indian culture.

The market and temple.

For a the cost of a small coin, you can receive a blessing from an elephant outside the temple.

Kandappa receives his blessing.

We visited the temple, the market, a few local monuments, the Pondicherry museum, and the Ashram.

The Gandhi monument

An ancient sculpture in the garden of the museum.

E Mae and Jayashree took a scooter taxi ride!

This was a wonderful place, a very spiritual city. More about Pondicherry tomorrow if there is time!

Bicycles, Temples and Crocodiles

I was invited to participate in a bicycle ride organized by Laserwords' parent company, Murugappa. I left the hotel at 4:45 AM for this 42 kilometer ride. I was loaned a bicycle and helmet, and we began our ride before sunrise to beat the heat and the traffic. This was an amazing experience! We navigated through traffic, including cows, dogs and goats, and finished the ride at a beach resort about two hours later. This was a great opportunity to experience the city, countryside, and culture. I am grateful to Vellayan and Kandappa for allowing me to participate, loaning me the equipment, and riding with me.

  

Kandappa and I after our ride.

The beach at the resort (see the temple in the background)

E. Mae, Jayashree, and Michael O'Brien met us at the resort, and after breakfast we set off to tour an ancient temple near by.

Shore Temple, built around 720 AD

After visiting the temple, we drove through an area with lots of beautiful, intricate, large-scale relief carvings on the boulders of the hillsides.

Next, we visited the Madras Crocodile Bank, a small zoo with crocodiles from all around the world.

We stopped for lunch at a local resort before beginning our journey back to the city.

Jayshree at the Fisherman's Cove Resort

Tomorrow we will visit Pondicherry, an historic French settlement southwest of Chennai, built about 300 years ago.

Day One in Chennai

Today, we had our first meeting with the team at Laserwords. They held a beautiful welcome ceremony for us when we reached the office, complete with floral display and traditional garlands.

Then we toured the facility and got to meet a few of the people we have been working with during the past several months. The group below is part of the college and major reference book publishing cluster. They handle project management, proofreading, and production for both print and digital delivery.

The next floor included the Higher Education/Professional publishing cluster, as well as the creative and technical art teams. The photo below shows Dass and some of the creative illustrators. This team has been developing illustrations for one of our new programs.

Here is a shot of E. Mae in the temporary office space we will use (home away from home). Just like in Columbus, we spent very little time there! : )

The day ended with a delicious meal with Michael and Jayashree. We sampled many different dishes, and the food was fantastic!

On Monday we tour the second Laserwords facility here in Chennai, and begin more in-depth discussion with each area.

Arrived in Chennai!

We landed in Chennai, covering a total of 8,853 miles. The local time here is about 10:30 PM on Thursday night. Our total travel time was about 22 hours. Too dark to see anything or take any pictures, but the car ride to the hotel was "interesting". Traffic laws here really are more like "guidelines", lot's of honking and random lane changes. We made it safely to our hotel, which is great, very contemporary. Tomorrow we have our first visit to the office.

Arrived in Delhi!

7,764 miles later, we arrived in Delhi! We were on-time, with about two hours to clear customs. No problem, except that signage in Delhi airport wasn't the greatest. We figured it out with time to spare. For those of you who asked, the map below shows the route we took, north and then east.

On Our Way

Our first stop is Chicago, then one long jump from Chicago to New Delhi! Here's E. Mae mutltitasking in the airport, our last connectivity point for about 16 hours!

The Journey Begins

This blog has been created so that colleagues, family, and friends can share in our experiences as we visit India. During this trip we will be staying in Chennai, with a brief stop in New Delhi. We will be visiting with a valued business partner, and learning a lot about life and work here. (Hopefully we'll have some fun too!) We hope that you will follow us on this trip. The journey begins tomorrow.