Today I went to see a cousin's scrap metal business in Bombay. He is very successful and has a son that graduate from MIT and a daughter from Yale.

The business is scap metal from old ships and second grade steel mill recycles.

The place was dirty, the work was painfully manual and hard. It is real manual and physical labor that defines work. He did not do the manual labor and had people doing it but he was involved in all aspects of it.

I will never bitch about a cushy paper pushing job.

I will post some picture when I get to a computer.

It was eye opening to say the least.

Mike

Seeing what actually goes on that helps keep the economies running can be or usually is an eye opening experience.

Congratulations on your cousins success and drive.

Were you in Mumbai only, or did you go to Alang (Gujarat)?

Our logistics shore base for three years was at Bhavnagar, near Alang. The drive into Alang is stunning. Piles and piles of everything imaginable from a ship. (Think bigger.) I'm talking piles two stories high of everything you can think of. Acres and acres of everything you can think of. Miles and miles of it. As you approach Alang, you will see less and less. The authorities have erected high scrap metal walls to keep you from seeing the work going on breaking ships. Stop to take a photo at any point and you will have a jeep along side you, and you run the risk of having your camera taken away, and being escorted to an office for questioning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHlvAE1me5Y

Two other things interesting in that area are the Asiatic Lions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiatic_lion

...and BG/Bhavnagar shore base. I doubt you can get close to it. It is landlocked except during high tide. The tide moves up the channel for three to five miles and forms a pond at a small dock. the supply vessels ride that tide up the canal and into the dock. An antiquated canal lock gate is closed behind them, and the clock starts. The supply vessels must be unloaded and reloaded and the vessel exit before the tide goes out, or it is stranded until the next tide. Since nothing in India is maintained, the gates have holes a man could crawl through. The water level is constantly dropping at the dock. It was an interesting logistics problem.

When you get back to the U.S., you will definitely bitch less about small inconveniences.

Was in Bombay. The ones in Gujarat are massive.

Physical work in the gentleman’s farmer sense is bs in my opinion. It’s not real work to earn a living but recreational.

Real hard physical labor is tough work and gets much harder with age. Glad I am a paper pusher.

Mike

quote:

Real hard physical labor is tough work and gets much harder with age.

You can say that again.