A (Mefloquine) Passage to India

My passport photo in 1993…

Mefloquine, an anti-malarial drug, has been pulled from the US market since 2009 due to its not-infrequent side-effects (including paranoid ideation). Unfortunately for me, my consulting gig¹ in India was in March of 1996.

The physician I saw as a prerequisite to my India trip was convinced, due to my “interesting” medical history, that I really needed to take a prophylaxis against malaria. A moment’s research on either his or my part would have shown that the area of India in which I was to consult was dry (very dry) in March and that malaria was by far the least risky aspect of going there. Unfortunately, he prescribed a good hefty dose of Mefloquine for before, during and after the trip.

I was supposed to look to the startup of the fiber recovery portion of the plant. The owner faced a hard deadline (some tax-related issue) and scheduled the trip with my bosses accordingly. Another “FG Paper” consultant was also going there to look after the papermachine². I had had ample time to review the design documents, and between the well-attested used papermachine and the first-rate and costly bleach plant which had been purchased from a top European supplier I had little cause to worry. Surely the rest of the equipment had been purchased equally thoughtfully.

When I changed planes in Europe on the way to India, I crossed paths with a man whose shirt displayed the logo of the equipment manufacturer who had sold the state-of-the-art bleaching system to my client in India. I introduced myself and asked if he knew how his company’s project in India was coming along. He said he had just been there, and said “You will see…(ha..ha..ha)….you will see.” He then turned and walked away, chuckling ominously.

I got on the continuing flight, passed through Immigration, and transfered to a train (2nd class seating) for the five-hour ride to the client’s city. I was picked up by a company driver at the train station, and driven another hour or so to the hotel. Later, the driver came back and delivered me to the mill site (through a maze off low-rise but dense urban development.)

After some preliminary introductions and meetings, I walked out (in full OSHA safety gear…hard hat, steel toe boots, hearing protection, safety glasses, a clip-on respirator) into the ongoing activity. It was hot (approaching 100F, and probably 40% relative humidity) and very dusty.

The mill was nowhere near ready to start up.

The large concrete chests (tanks) meant to hold the pulp on its way to the papermachine were still under construction. I saw a couple of men running a gasoline-powered rotary concrete mixer, maybe 3 cubic foot capacity, like one you might rent for a small home repair project. The mixer was dumped out from time to time, and the concrete shovelled into baskets which women in saris picked up, put on their heads, and carried off. The women then climbed ladders up a high scaffold³. At the top, a man took the baskets and dumped the concrete into a form, which was slowly moved around the chest wall perimeter, rather like one might craft a coil pot. The women then climbed back down for another trip. The sand, Portland cement, and aggregate were also carried to the rotary mixer by woman-power. Water, too, was carried in from the nearby river in jugs on women’s heads.

Eventually, I tired of watching this Pharaonic scene, and moved onto the chemical preparation area.

The dry powder bleach⁴ was to be dissolved in water using a typical metering screw feeder, consisting of a hopper for the powder, a metering screw with variable-speed motor at the bottom of the hopper to deliver a stream of powder to a small, closed, tank with an agitator to make down the bleach in water. This was also being field-constructed from angle iron and sheets of stainless steel. The hopper was complete, and men were messing with the home-made metering screw, presumably calibrating its speed-to-weight-delivered performance. To that end, a man was preparing to dump part of a bag of bleach into the hopper. He was making rather a mess of his job. Just as he got the dust well stirred up, another worker struck a welding arc on one of the supporting legs to add another bit of angle iron to the structure. I thought I was done for and did a quick duck-and-cover to minimize the effects of the explosion (nothing exploded). I decided that I did not need to be anywhere near that device.

By then, I had resolved to just wait out the week and concentrate on getting home alive. I found a comfortable coil of heavy rope in a shady spot near the papermachine (which, my colleague told me, had been reassembled from its parts rather successfully and would be ready to run soon, should there be any pulp produced). An air conditioned conference room was available, but I did not want to have anything further to do with Management and just watched the slow fabrication of the drum pulp washers, neither plumb nor level, from my comfy coil.

Finally time was up, and I asked the client to arrange for my transportation back to the airport. Word came back from the Big Man: “Dr. Lavery⁵ should not leave." Back at the hotel, I got a phone line and spoke with my boss back in New Jersey. He said that I should leave no matter what, time was up, and there was no agreement to pay for any extension. The mill missing its own deadline was simply not our problem, we were ready to do what was needed but they were not.

On departure day, I gathered up my stuff (except for my work clothes, which were in unspeakably bad shape, and my safety gear, which could be easily replaced at home), and waited in the lobby for the supposedly scheduled driver. I was not too surprised when departure time came and went, with no transportation.

I went up to the hotel desk, flashed a wad of bills, and asked if there was anyone who might drive me to the airport…as soon as possible, preferably immediately. Of course, there was a wife’s cousin or such who had a “good” car and would be happy to drive me for, say $100 (US) cash. Deal!

Some twenty minutes later a young man showed up in a clean but old car and waved me in. In the meantime, his extensive extended family gathered near the car (I suppose they all worked for the hotel). The farewells were touching and tearful; there seemed to be a stong possiblity that he wouldn’t come back. Thus waved off in style into the late afternoon heat and dust we headed onto the highway for the five-plus hour drive and, eventually, tommorow’s early morning flight home.

After an hour or so, we crossed the state line (the mill is in a “dry” state) and my new friend suggested that we stop at a liquor store to pick up some beer. This sounded like an excellent idea, and I handed over a supply of rupees sufficient for, perhaps, a case of Kingfisher. With that reinforcement in hand (both my hand and his) we took off again.

It was now getting dark, and I discovered that in that part of India at least, it is considered rude and dangerous to use the car’s headlights in traffic. No traffic, no problem with using the lights…but there was lots of traffic. So, with running lights only, we continued on through the dark. This was a wide two lane road, with lots of oncoming trucks, each with only a handful of tiny lights visible. The custom seemed to be to blow the car’s horn when a truck was approaching (there was always a truck approaching). The truck would reciprocate with its own horn blast. Sure glad I had plenty of beer, although I was somewhat worried about the driver’s blood alcohol level. I now understood the funereal send-off.

Finally, some six hours later (with a couple of rest stops) we arrived at the international airport in the very early morning. I handed the driver what was left of my rupees…probably $50 or so worth, got my stuff and went into the terminal to wait for my flight. I expect my driver made out well on his return trip with a backseat and “boot” full of locally-illegal booze to sell.⁶

It took a very long time for me to recover from the trip, what with the nightmares and all. I dutifully used up the last of the Mefloquine and never went back to that particular physician.