A pilot with an unusual interest

Captain Mike Patel stands out, clad in black shirt and trousers, and there is a glittering ‘Airbus’ logo just above the pocket. “Yes, I am a test delivery pilot of the Toulouse-based Airbus Industrie,” he says. “This means, I deliver the planes when it is ready to be given to the buyer.” His latest delivery is the A-380, which costs a whopping $250 million. “I took a plane to Dubai because the Emirates had placed an order for 50 and we were giving them the 12th plane.”

Of course, the latest planes have the ‘fly-by-wire’, system. “This means that everything is computerised and the plane flies by itself,”  says Mike. “I only intervene when a problem arises.”

Based in London, Mike has been with Airbus for the past ten years. But the reason he has come to the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas is because he is a proponent of tantric sex.

“When you have sex, you experience a second of bliss,” he says. “I can enable you to prolong that state. The mind and body has to be in tune with nature. You have to awaken the chakras, and you need to do yoga and meditation.” Unusually, he has three thousand followers in the Ukraine. “I trained one man and they came one after the other,” he says with a wide smile.  

Saroja Raja Gopal is at the opposite end of the spectrum. She is flipping through a photo book on Mahatma Gandhi at the Timeless Mahatma Trust stall. “For me, Gandhiji means ahimsa,” she says. “The way he fought for the Independence of India was unique.”

She says that as a party member of the Malaysian Indian Congress, they follow his principles. “Our party represents the Indian community but we are all very happy in Malaysia,” says the Kuala Lumpur-based activist.

“Although there will be people who will tell you that we are having a bad time, but I don’t agree.”

At the Pravasi, Saroja, whose grandparents migrated from Thanjavur decades ago, says she is very happy to meet Indians from all over the world. “It has been a great experience,” she says. 

The portly Ram Chander is wearing a khaki uniform but with an unusual tag: ‘United Fire Services’.  He is a supervisor of a private organisation who has come all the way from Delhi with a team of six. The aim is to ensure that the 28,000 sq. ft. exhibition centre at the Pravasi Bharatiya Devas is fire-safe.

“My men are wandering around all over keeping a sharp watch,”he says. “If a spark can be immediately extinguished, it will avert a major fire.”

So they have fire extinguishers, a white powder which can be thrown onto the spark, and carbon dioxide foam.

http://newindianexpress.com/states/kerala/article1415191.ece