Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Innocent Naivety


A truck full of police officers

Some days back my scooter got towed away because I parked it at a wrong place. What to do… first take an auto rickshaw to go back to office, then find out how you get your scooter back for which of course you don’t have any papers because you took it over from some of the former trainees which already had taken it over form some of the former trainees of the former trainees. J I found out that this doesn’t play a role at all, you just go to the police station with your driver’s license and the key in your hand, say which vehicle is yours, pay the fine and drive out again. Since I’m white my friends advised me not to go by myself… because the fine would surely be higher and some documents might be asked, my international driver’s licence maybe not accepted and so on… so an Indian friend of mine went in to get it.When I was about to give him the money, he asked if I wanted a bill or not: with receipt it’s 100.-Rupees fine (2.20CHF) without receipt 50.- Somehow in my head it made sense…yeah sure, if they have to issue the papers it’s more work so more expensive. I was wondering for what reason people might ask for a bill though… who is keen to have a memory of a fine? But since nobody seemed to bother, I didn’t waste any further thought to it. Yeah, the smart ones of course realise very quickly, it’s got nothing to do with the paper effort. But I was too naïve to think about corruption at this moment. I just applied my logic and not at all the Indian one. So what happens is that with bill, the incident is registered and the money goes to the police’s account. Without bill, there’s no track. So basically you just bribe the police officer in charge who will keep the money with him.

My first case of corruption! Now I understand why accused people insist they didn’t do anything at all ! J

Streetlife in Baroda

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Business Trip to Chennai and the Temple Experience


The project I am leading in TCS includes processes at different locations across India, mainly Baroda with around 650 and Chennai with around 1400 associates. After having planned and launched the project successfully two weeks back, I got to go to Chennai (formerly Madras) for a couple of days. I met my team, the leaders and some other key people for my activities and finally got to know the face behind the calls and mails I was having everyday. I also took advantage of my company paid flight to the South of India and added a weekend to visit some places around.

An absolute highlight was the trip to Tirupati. Together with 4 friends from the Janus batch who have been placed in Chennai after our common induction in Bombay, I got ready to visit one of the most important temples of India, every day thousands of pilgrims come to this place, often easily reaching 100.000. My friends had prepared me well in advance that we will have to queue up during hours to get in. The result was the following journey:

- 22.30 departure in Chennai

- 2.00 arrival at the ticket counter to get the 50 Rupees fast track ticket which reduces waiting hours from 12-13 to 5-6 hours

- 2.00 – 5.00 sitting in the queue to wait for the ticket counter to open

- 5.30 – 8.00 –go to a crappy hotel, “freshen up”, have breakfast, travel to the temple.

- 8.00 – 10.00 queuing up to get into the temple (which is absolutely fantastic timing, everybody was absolutely thrilled that it was so quick

- 10.19.53 – 10.19.55 see actual idol inside the temple

- 10.20 – 12.30 roam around the place, visit souvenir stores, etc and leave

- 12.30 – 19.00 lunch in same crappy hotel, travel back to Chennai and visit one more much smaller temple on the way

So now some of you might wonder why the hell someone would take all this hastle for only around 3-4 seconds. Good question, I asked myself the same before I went there. The answer is the religious power of this temple. Generally, Indian temples are the exact opposite to our churches: they’re beautiful from outside, but inside there is only the idol of a god placed, some priest and the place where you give your offerings to the god. and that’s it. Temples are relatively small, people just quickly go inside to give their respect to the god and then go out again. Often they stay around the temple for a while to pray or meditate but hardly inside. In general, for me it was mostly a little bit disappointing to see.

However, the visit of Tirupati was a perfect illustration of why the temples are so special. The temple in Tirupati is dedicated to Vishnu and Hindus believe that you can only visit it if the god called you to do so. It is said that if you plan to visit it without being called, something will cross your plans and you will not be able to come. Many people are said to have tried various times to come before they were actually able to visit the place. Once they are there, many people shave their head and offer the hair to the god. Also women. Even though everyone knows that the hair will be sold for good money make wigs, they do it for the god.


Waiting in the queue, people chant and shout for the god. I felt like on a soccer match where suddenly one shouts something and everyone around shouts the name of the god in a chorus. The moment you are inside the actual temple, you get carried by the crowd, yelled at and physically pushed by the security guards to move quickly. There are so many people there, you can hardly breathe and to be honest I was so tense that by the time I realized that I should have a look at the inside of the temple and the idol, I was already carried out of it by the crowd. There is nothing calm and contemplative in this temple at all, as we usually imagine religious places. It’s loud, smelly, crowded and absolutely stressful. But still…it is amazingly peaceful. When the people come out of the temple they have this amazing happiness on their face to have been able to see this god. This makes the place to be surrounded by an extraordinary energy… It may sound weird for us, but it’s just an incredibly spiritual aura.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

The VIP Feeling

Earlier, I had described that since I arrived in India, I can comprehend how celeb's must feel when paparazzi hunt them for a picture. To prove that I'm not exaggerating I'm showing you two pictures of mine in the newspaper! Both of them were taken in my first 3 weeks in Baroda.

First, a picture of some of the interns at a concert on page 3 of the India Times was shown.

„let’s dance“

About 1,5 weeks later I attended the anniversary of a local newspaper and even though the picture doesn’t really make the impression that this party was a success, my shot landed up in the report about it. I mean, look at my bored expression! It must be a huge thing to have a foreigner attend a party that such a picture is printed.

Oh yes, and I got the offer to be on TV as well. Actually already twice: once to be in a Bollywood movie (many young tourist roaming in Colaba, Mumbai must have been asked that question but if you look at those absolutely untalented white peeps dancing in the background of some Bollywood movies... you really don’t want to be associated with that!) and once in a report about foreigners enjoying the Indian Navratri festival. But i declined these "honours". After some weeks in India, I guess no additional attention is required.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

A festive week in Baroda


Since last weekend India is in Diwali fever. It's the most important festival in India and linked to the story in the Ramayana epic where Lord Rama comes back to India after defeating Ravana in Lanka (Sri Lanka). Basically, it is the festival of lights: every house is decorated with colourful lamps and candles are lit around the house every evening during one week. Families also decorate their homes with flowers and rangoli (sand paintings). On saturday evening crackers, fireworks, "bombs", volcanos are lit and fill the streets with life... and noise. This actually happenes three days before and three days after as well. People get very excited about it. In addition the state of Gujarat was celebrating New Year on Monday, so you can imagine how fantastic the mood is over here at the moment. :)

Piece of art made of sand at a rangoli exhibition

In our office we celebrated this event last Friday: from Thursday evening on, everybody was buzzing around, putting up flowers, ribbons, painting rangoli on the floor to turn the whole office into an absolutely faboulous place. No wall, no window, no desk was left out. We can't even imagine anything similar to this. Unfortunately security restrictions in our office prohibit pictures to be taken otherwise I would have been able to share this with you. All these efforts were done for the purpose of ecorating the place beautifully together, not to have it decorated. It's really the process which is important. Because on Friday evening everything was over. For this event everyone was wearing traditional dresses: men would come in kurta and women all wore a saari.... including me. Everybody was absolutely thrilled about it, much more than I was myself. And I even got a special award for it in the internal Diwali competition. :)

My friend Raj and me wearing the traditional Indian dress for office celebration.

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Settling and adapting the Indian lifestyle...

These last weeks I have been able to really settle here in Baroda and I'm getting used to my life in India. This includes adapting to the busy and work oriented lifestyle…

My TCS project has started its activities and keeps me quite occupied. In addition, the working hours here are a bit different: usually people start around 9 and finish at 7 in the evening. It’s basically the same for me. But because my project involves people from different locations and different shift timings (they work in the evening/night) I often come a bit later, at 10, and also stay longer. So usually I reach home around 8.30 or 9. This week, I even left office twice after 11 and once after midnight. It was very tiring... but worth it. The launching of my project went off very well. But the consequence is that I caught I cold and I'm fighting against it on my valuable weekend! :(

Some weeks back, I finally found a very nice apartment here in Baroda, which I am sharing with other people. As for now Robert, a guy from Croatia who works with a software developing company and his polish girlfriend Anna live with me. One friend of the Janus batch (my TCS induction group) was supposed to move in here as well, but his plans were changed a bit. In general, a guy and a girl living together is something not at all normal here in India… people stay with their parents until they get married and in case they go for work to another city, a girl would never live with a guy. That’s an absolute no go because it implies that there could be something going on between them. I could tell very quickly from the surprised faces from the people I talked to, that this is a fact I shouldn’t mention too often from now on. our apartment, is a very nice three bedroom apartment with a big living room and in one of the fanciest neighbourhoods of Baroda. For this jewel we pay “a fortune” for local standards: 12’500Rupees or about 180Euros, for all of us together! J But once you look at the salaries and the costs of living here, you’ll understand how much this money is actually worth.

Three weeks back, I attended a wedding in Delhi.I was so excited to go there, I bought a beautiful Saree to wear and went there with on of my best friends here in India, Sreejith, who was the best man for the wedding.The wedding was “unfortunately” a bit sophisticated and simple so that the whole dancing and colourful traditions were left out. On the same day Sreejith’s sister got engaged (arranged marriage, i'll dedicate a post to this soon as well) and the ceremony for this was quite vivid and exciting. Generally the brides wear very traditional, colourful and rich dresses and lots of jewellery, which just looks amazing.

During that trip, I also took the chance and visited Delhi a bit. ...and I really fell in love with that city. It has a lot of the Mogul architecture and a large Moslem community. Two factors which give the city a very special and different character.
The dancing hall at Red Fort
Even though i was wearing a well covering shirt, long trousers and had a scarf to cover neck and shoulders, they insisted that I have to rent a "full cover" (ugly, sweaty pink overdress) to go inside the Jama Masjid (Mosque) ...a trick to make some money?

The busy streetlife in the old city / muslim area.

Feel like having chicken?

Friday, September 18, 2009

In a bag

The bag seems to be a very important item here in India. You can get everything in a bag.
I had already shown the milk in a bag.
There are also chinese take away noodles in a bag.
You can even get a nice parcel full of food and beautiful presents from Switzerland - which your sister sent you in a originally square parcel putting so much efforts, love and money into it - crushed in a bag.
Men carry a "handbag" here. Yes this is the word they use for their bags. By the way, from a western perspective, men here generally have a quite feminine touch. They walk around holding hands or embraced holding each others shoulders. They wear pink and red bracelets with beads and pearls. Dear European men, you would have to revise your definition of masculinity over here. :)

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Picnic in Rajasthan

Last weekend I was invited to join a group of 25 associates from TCS to join them on a picnic in Mt.Abu. My first though was something like…oh nice a picnic on some nearby mountain sounds like a nice little distraction. Not quite. A ‘picnic’ actually stands for whatever short trip. I found out that they rented a bus for two days to go to a beautiful neighbouring state Rajasthan. So sure I was in!

The way up to one of the temples.

It was repeatedly communicated that we would leave at “10pm sharp!” in front of our office. I can’t believe, I still fall for that! …I was present at 9.55 and was the second person to be there. J (Last week I thought I had learned it and arrived 5mins late at an important meeting and I was the meeting had already started!) Around 10.45 our group became complete and we got slowly going. The buswould take us to Mt.Abu by the next morning. It was a very funny ride. Honestly, I didn’t really expect adult people to sing and dance on the bus. It was a lot of fun… remembered me a bit of AIESEC. Just on a side note… India must have influenced AIESEC a lot. The culture of the people here is very close to the one in the organisation… I’m very often quite surprised. So after some shyness, I joined the activities a little…although it’s a bit hard to sing along hindi songs and dance the choreography of Bollywood movies you don’t know.

I just had to wear this traditional dress...

After some issues with the hotel (according to the board on the roof it’s “the only place to stay in paradise in Mt.Abu which is comfortable and amazingly clean”-we changed after 5mins J ) we went to explore the place. During the next two days I realized with what different eyes I see the world around me. All the people on the trip were very impressed by the beautiful mountains and the lake…I was thrilled to know that the Pakistani border is close, to see the beautiful carvings in the temples, to see a lonesome man having a little store (and house?) on the top of a rock to serve the thirsty tourists.

The radar "against" Pakistan

Shop in a rock

Unfortunately on Sunday morning many people fell sick. Not me though, I was all happy. We thought that the lonesome man’s fresh lemonade must have been a little less fresh than we thought. (I smelt on it, had 1 tiny sip and passed it over immediately, smelt like big pot of rotten vegetables)Finally o Sunday afternoon I fell sick as well…so it can’t have been the lemonade. J We had hired some caterers to simplify the meals for our big group, maybe something was wrong with their food. You’d probably think that hiring caterers means that some people in Mt.Abu offer this service for the tourist groups or something similar, don’t you? (at least I did J) Wrong! This is India. Here, you just hire 4 people in Baroda, make them buy all the food in advance, bring all of it plus pans, cups, cutlery, etc. in the bus and join you for the entire 2 days. They travel on the bench behind the driver (all four of them) and cook food for 25 people whenever you want it…and no problem if you arrive 4 hours later.
Oh yes, by the way…of course the bus has no toilet…and with about 8 out of 25 people suffering from vomiting and/or diarrhoea this ride can be a bit uncomfortable. I think for me it stopped 3 times… and once I couldn’t help it and just opened the window. This is India, right? ;-)

Traditional Rajasthani

It was a beautiful trip: the places were beautiful, the people great fun and Rajasthan is very nice for art crafts shopping. I’ll definitely have to visit other places in this state during my stay here.

Friday, August 28, 2009

Honeymoon is over…

I have been in Baroda for 1 week now. So far it’s been a very mixed experience. The streets here are so empty, people are friendly and everything is less crowded…of course it’s still about 10x as much as in Switzerland, but compared to Mumbai it’s really calm. So I enjoyed the first experience. Unfortunately I’m still living from my suitcase and I haven’t really settled down. But soon I will, hopefully. This is probably the reason why I have lost my honeymoon attitude towards this country: the starring really gets on my nerves,the noise is sometimes unbearable and the heat is just suffocating at the moment. And this is Indian WINTER, I don’t even want to imagine how I’ll feel in summer. L

An indian family enjoying the beach: usually everybody goes into the water with all their cloths!

At least I got used to the food. After some very, very bad 16 hours during my third week here, I was just fed up with anything just close to spicy. As a consequence, I had pizza about 5 times in7 days. J But now I really like the food, although it’s very heavy and a bit unhealthy. I have never seen a place, which mixes so many carbohydrates in one meal. Yummie, let’s have rice with a potatoes and peas… and eat it with fried bread! Whoever thought Indian food is very healthy and who comes here will loose of weight, is totally wrong. Who slims in India just can’t handle the spiciness or the extreme sweetness and therefore doesn’t eat. I would die for a plate of vegetables or a nice fresh salad (the “salad” I get for lunch in the canteen everyday is a handful of cut onions). I’m really looking forward to moving to a place where I can finally cook again by myself.

Have you ever bought milk in a plastic bag ?

At the moment I live with Anit, an AIESEC member, in a 3 room apartment which doesn’t have a kitchen (basically there’s very little furniture), where the shower is a bucket filled with water (very normal for India though), the toilet what we would call a highway toilet (a flushable whole in the ground) and the whole apartment is a bit… let’s say basic and dusty. In 2 weeks one guy from the TCS Janus program (the induction and fast track program I’m in) will be reallocated to Baroda for 6 months. We decided to look for a furnished flat and share the living costs for this period.

Tushar's family invited us to celebrate with them

This weekend I decided to follow an invitation and go back to Mumbai for the weekend to celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi with some of my Janus friends. From Baroda to Mumbai it takes “only” 6,5 hours… so it was worth to go even for only 1,5 days. The train ride was spectacular. I was scared to get bored, but no way. I’m glad a bought a non-A/C ticket. In those cheaper compartments, people are allowed to sell and beg. So in 6 hours a saw about 15 children: many of them singing, one boy performing amazing Michael Jackson dance moves, some of them cleaning the chips bags, newspapers, bottles, food rests, tea cups, dust,… from the floor and asking for money as many other do: old people, sick people and transvestites. Yes, no kidding. It seems to be very hard for them to find a job in India, so people give money. But not out of altruism or pity, to some extent it’s pure egoism: Indians believe that transvestites can curse you. So you rather give them some coins than to be punished with bad luck. Logic, isn’t it? J Indians find some superstitious explanations in many things of everyday life. Bird droppings on you are very good luck for example. I got hit twice already, lucky me! J

Hanging out of a Bombay local train as locals do.

I’m at a point where I don’t just blindly admire what happens around me any more. The honeymoon period of my experience is over. I start to question Indian reality a bit more and I realize that often I cannot estimate the reaction to statements I say or things I do because I just don’t have any influence on hem. As an example: it has already happened to me about three times that some stranger starts to talks to me about sex. And it has nothing to do with my revealing cloths. You can’t imagine how much I cover myself. I sweat like hell just to be sure not to show any skin on décolleté, shoulders or too much of my legs. It’s actually just the fact of being a westerner that makes those people think that I would be open to talk about sex with whomever. It’s a mindset they have of white women, no matter what you do, say or wear. And that’s also why guys want a picture with me. Just to show off to have posed an open-minded woman. I have to admit that to be seen this way can be quite frustrating at times. I guess I’ll just have to learn to understand this society… or sometimes rather not think so much about everything, as dear people tend to tell me.


Sunday, August 16, 2009

The privileges of being white...

So what does it mean, here in India, to be white as I am? It means that you have the disadvantages of being identified as a tourist immediately and paying more wherever you go. But it also means that you experience certain benefits only because you’re white. …and I guess being white and of the female gender also plays a considerable role.

The very first thing I had to deal with was these looks. How often did I ask myself: Why the hell can’t people stop starring at me? If I hadn’t attentive in history class I’d sometimes really think I’m the first European to come to this country. But I must admit, there is two types of starring. There is the rather perfidious one; a person would pretend to write a text message but in fact take a picture of me with his (yes, it’s usually men) cellphone. And then there is the open type, where they just look at me and just don’t turn away any more. Yesterday, a young couple asked me if they could take a picture with me. If ever I get famous in my life, I’m definitely prepared for those paparazzi and fans. J


One more aspect that I had to learn was that as long as I have any male Indian friend around, I’ll not be able to go anywhere by myself. Not even to the mall that is 100m away. I asked myself where this overprotectiveness comes from that made me feel so constricted. Because...what does it help if you’re an independent person, if people don’t let you do what you want to do? Learning on both sides needed to take place. My friends learned to let me do things by myself and not always offer their company/support for small things until I asked for it. And I learned to take more help than I’d usually do in small everyday activities or sometimes just don’t tell anyone that I want to go to the supermarket. J


The next point is a normally negative one, which can be turned positive : the bargaining. For obvious reasons, I’m usually told a high price when I want to buy something. So you need to bargain. This was actually one of the few things of which I thought I would never feel comfortable with, before I left Switzerland. But then I learned to play the “just because I’m white you want to rip me off”-card. And this has now become one of my favourite games…with a 80% success score so far. (Yes, sometimes I exaggerate and start with a price, which really seems to be too low. But you have to try, right? J)

One more benefit is the fact that I get to meet people I would probably not get in contact if it wasn’t for my skin colour, language abilities and communicative personality. Last week I was accompanying managers to two important meetings at my company. It is a real privilege and I appreciate these opportunities a lot. Still I have to understand and get used to this.

So these are some of the experiences I’m facing on a daily basis, which I attribute to the fact of being a white foreigner in this country. I had never experienced something similar before. Even though in most of the countries I’ve been to, visitors are always very clearly identifiable and also warmly welcomed, but I never felt so foreign in a country in these terms. It seems it could never be possible to feel more like a local, no matter where you live or work, what you wear or eat, what language you speak or what people you’re with. I guess I’ll just need to realize what effect I have on people here and then find my role in this society.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Humidity

When you read my past blog entries, how did you imagine the humidity here really is? You sure believed me that it’s not pleasant, but did you believe it can have these effects?

My cell phone and my camera suddenly have a very long reaction time… somehow they just don’t work properly anymore. It took me some time to realize that people here protect their electronic devices with a plastic cover. When I saw the covered TV in my room, I was convinced it was for hygienic reasons and admired the hotel. …until someone in Switzerland made me think differently. Danke, Fabian. J

Doing your laundry is another challenge. After 10 days I figured I didn’t have so many clean cloths anymore. Easy to resolve, right? Just wash them and in a day or two your closet will be full with fresh clothes again… theoretically!!! In fact, it takes at least four days until your clothes are in a status, which could be described as somehow close to dryness. But at that point, they have been hanging wet for such a long time that a little weird smell already took over the freshness of clean laundry.

But the worst of all: This can happen to your toiletry, if you do not wash your beauty on a very regular basis. Have you ever...? ;) Wherever you have touched it most, mould appears.

I admit, I left the fungus grow 3 days longer when I noticed… just for the sake of taking this disgusting picture. J


Sunday, August 2, 2009

A tourist's day in Mumbai !

For the first time since I’ve arrived here in Mumbai, today I’ve finally gotten a chance to visit the centre and explore the city.

A breathtaking 45min train ride (“Nadja, just push as much as you can and jump in!”) started our journey. Different compartments for women and men make the ride more comfortable. And girls selling hairclips, stickers, etc. made it even a little shopping experience. J

Haji Ali Dargah is a muslim (sikh) tomb on a small island you can only reach at low tide. While the way is totally flodded with water during high tide, the low tide attracts many visitors: believers, tourist and also beggars. I honestly had a hard time walking through them. Many people with visible diseases, most leprosy, tiny children and other unfortunate border the way to this holy shrine. I was glad to have my friends around. However, the visit was totally worth the hastle, it was a very nice experience. This place just has a very special charism.



Seeing the huge garbage piles on the shore on our way back shocked me a bit… but somehow it just seems to be an accepted part of the city.
Afterwards we walked around in Colaba, probably the richest and most touristy place in Mumbai. Beautiful heritage buildings and street shops made me walk up and down. And I’m very proud that I was able to bargain like an Indian and got my pants for 120 instead of 260 Rupees. J

All in all: an absolutely amazing day! I love the impressions in my mind, the great fun we had and that I’ve finally had the chance to see a beautiful little chunk of this huge city. Mumbai is an extraordinary place; I hope I’ll have more time to explore it.

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Welcome to TATA !

My first week here in Mumbai has been quite exciting so far. On the day I had left Switzerland, the coordinator of my internship at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) told bet hat I would stay the first 3 weeks in Mumbai and participate in an introduction programme of MBA graduates starting in the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) department right now. I felt honoured, it sounded like a great chance to have a good start. But when it started on Monday, I felt very lost. I was the only one not to have done an MBA and I just had no idea about all those theoretical models and processes they were talking about. This programme is the first edition of a fast track programme which will put the participants in middle management positions in only 1,5 years. The 15 people admitted were selected amongst more than 1000 applicants all across India. In the first session we were told clearly that the ultimate goal of this „Janus Programme“ is that one of the participants will eventually be TCS’s next CEO. To be honest, I felt a bit überfordert and stupid. But soon I realised that the people leading this workshop were not so keen on all those theoretical things and that the participants were extraordinarily great people: young (22-32), intelligent and very open and interested. We all live together in a nice hotel (ca. 4 stars). The programme is very interesting; we get to learn about all the fields of BPO. But it is quite though. We leave the hotel at 9am, come back around 10pm and than have to prepare group assignments and presentations. So we get around 5 hours of sleep per day as a maximum and there’s no free time at all. It is a hard but very good start into the company and a smooth start into Indian culture, I’m glad I can be part of it

During this week I learned a lot about TCS but also about the whole TATA Group. Historically, the Tata family initiated the development of India by starting off the textile and steel production for export in the second half of 19th century. The Tatas are an important part of Indias national history and identity, everybody knows and many admire them. There are TATA companies in every field you can just imagine: steel, automobile (land rover, jaguar, tata (cf the tata nano the cheapest car of the world 2500$... and it meets all the international security standards), telecom, chemicals, watches (slimmest watch of the world), tea (Tetley tea), leather (production for zara, etc.), energy (provides half Mumbai with electricity), hotels (all the taj hotels, including the one attacked), airlines (air India), etc. The Tatas are very innovative companies; there were many “firsts” developed. What stroke me most is the community focus of the group: 66% of all the TATA profit goes to charity all over the world, Ratan Tata (the head of TATA) lives in an apartment (not a house) downtown. Sounds like a good PR strategy, doesn’t it? But the thing is that it’s not PR at all. All those facts are hardly being talked about in public, so most of the people don’t know about it. Humility is a very central value of the Tatas.

The company I’ll be working in for the next year, Tata Consultancy Services is an IT company working with companies from all over the world. TCS started in India what this country is now known for everywhere in the world: the IT industry. I’ll stay here in Mumbai for 2 more weeks and then head to Baroda (about 400km north). To be honest I don’t really know what I’ll be doing there. J My job description said I’d be introducing and leading an internal structure for cultural and language training in the market research department. But some days ago I was told that my first 3 months will be very busy because I’ll have to help 30 Hungarians arriving for a project to settle down in Baroda as well. If there’s one thing I’ve learned here is that I should expect the unexpected. You don’t need to know things that don’t yet matter at the present point of time because it’s very probable to change again. Just some examples to illustrate this: While presenting a group assignment, they suddenly tell us that now they want someone else to speak. I was told 5mins before that I’ll now have to deliver a 1hour German language session for our group. It might seem difficult sometimes, but it is a great way to make you learn the maximum possible.

A bit out of context I want to tell you about how I manage with food and climate over here. After a couple of days I was a bit proud to be able to handle the spiciness of Indian food. I could eat everything, so I did (but still sticking to my rule of not eating any street/”dangerous” food during the first month). Soon I was to realize, that to be able to eat spicy food does not mean to be able to handle it. From last Wednesday on I couldn’t eat anything spicy anymore. My stomach could just not cope with spicy food for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack time. I had stomach-aches and didn’t want to eat anything any more because everything here is spicy (except the sweets). So during 3 days I tried to eat only plane rice and bread. Absolutely tasteless but now at least I feel better. I’ll definitely stop eating spicy for breakfast and try to be more conscious with the other meals as well.
The climate is a bit harder to adapt to. During the monsoon time it’s hot and humid… no matter were you are. So there is A/C everywhere. And it’s very cold: I always need to carry a sweater/jacket when I go to the office. Consequently, I don’t turn on the A/C in my room… which is ok in terms of temperature because the building is well built. But not in terms of humidity, everything is a bit wet: the bed sheets when you go to bed, the clothes you washed, the walls which build mold. I haven’t really figured out how to handle this, but I’ll get there eventually.

To sum up: I’m tired but quite happy over here. I guess I’m the perfect example of the honeymoon stage of a cultural experience. J

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Welcome to India – first impressions

So here I am, in incredible India! After a very comfortable but noisy flight (I’ll never have a baby! J) with Emirates, I arrived in Mumbai. My very first impressions: it's hot and humid; you just can’t help the sweating. What I then saw first was the slums right besides the runways. To be honest, he first impression wasn't really the best one.

White girl in the big city

The arranged airport pickup by AIESEC worked more or less. The guy was there, but didn’t recognize me (he had asked for a picture in beforehand) and of course a sign with my name would have been quite circumstantial. So I had to call him. The following 3 hours taxi ride was a little bit of a torture: we were constantly standing in traffic at around 35° and in a car from the 50ies (or so) à no A/C, no wind, just heat! But it was very interesting as well, because I got to observe the city and the people. auto-rickshaws (basically a motorcycle with a car-top on it) are everywhere; it seems to be the principal means of transportation. And even though Mumbai has many foreigners, I was stared at, in a way I had hardly imagined. People don’t turn away, once your looks meet. Two guys in a van even took a picture of me with their cellphone. Very funny experience… and it seems I’ll have to get used to it. J One thing that really impressed me is that even though you can immediately see that there’s a lot of poverty, I couldn’t really tell who were the poor people: Everybody is dressed very clean and nicely; men the western way wearing trousers and shirt, women the Indian way with a salwar-kameez (pants and long blouse) or a sari. Only a minority of women wears tops or t-shirts.

When we finally arrived in Thane (north of Mumbai, just outside the city border), I was pleasantly surprised. For the first 2 days of my stay here I live in a guest apartment. This means I have a private cook and a butler. They’re only here to serve me and 1-2 other guests. What should I say… I felt very welcome. J Dinner was amazing: I sat down and got 4 different vegetable and chicken dishes, bread, rice, salad and fruit. When I asked the guys to show me how to eat the Indian way (with your fingers), they didn’t seem to understand. Only when the butler (I don’t know how they’re really called…) from the opposite apartment came in and understood what I wanted, they giggled but didn’t want to show me. After a while the 2nd butler showed me how to use the three fingers (thumb, middle and ring finger) of your right hand… the others still laughing behind.

Holy cow!

On Saturday, I decided to defy the monsoon and walk around a little in the neighbourhood. I had observed the day before, that everyone is wearing thongs (and their clothes are clean). So this was my plan as well. To adapt to the heat but also the customs, I wore white ¾ pants and my plastic thongs. It didn’t work out at all, my pants were all dirty after 5mins. While walking around a man suddenly came up to me. “Ma’am, all the mod comes to your trousers. You should wear heel.“ … and off he was again. I bought thongs with heels in the afternoon. J

A bit later, walking around a corner, I suddenly saw a cow on the street. Ok, they are holy… but it is still quite unusual that nobody seems to matter. Whereas they honk the horn for everything and at all times, they drive around the cow as if there was nothing standing there. When I took a picture of this scene, a father came to me with his daughter. He pointed at my camera and said something I could not really guess. Did he want a picture of his daughter, did they want to take a picture for me, with me…. what? Indian gestures are so different from European ones; you can’t guess at all what they want to say if you don’t speak the language! After a while I found out that they wanted to see the picture I took from the cow. Thelittle girl was all happy and they walked away laughing. It’s a very nice culture, people here laugh a lot. I haven’t quite figured out though if they laugh about me or with me. J

Do you speak English ?

When I realized that there isn’t so much more around to see, I followed the advice of the girl from Tata I’m in contact with and go to the big shopping mall. I wasn’t up for shopping at all, but I thought if that’s her advice for an afternoon programme, it must be very interesting or different to what I know. It was not, except the metal detector at the entrance. But to get there was quite an adventure. I didn’t want to take a rickshaw straight away but rather walk a bit in this direction in order to get to see a bit more. Whenever I asked someone for directions they didn’t really know what I was talking about. Then I realized that asking rickshaw drivers or people at a food stand is a bad strategy because they firstly, don’t speak English at all and secondly don’t know shopping places (or at least the ones I asked). After walking back and forth for a while I gave up and decided to take a rickshaw. Sounds easy, but it isn’t at the first time. The first driver just said no, the second didn’t know where it was and the third one didn’t speak a word of English but agreed to bring me there. He didn’t really know where it was either. I didn’t mind anymore, not even that unfortunately, his “meter was broke”J. He always talked to me even though I could never give an answer he understood and then he just laughed and gave me a high-five. This was quite funny at the beginning.

When I suggested asking someone on the street where the place is, instead of asking another rickshaw driver or some of the many people walking, he drove 100m to a store in a side street. After asking he wanted to convince me that I buy something (if I understood him right). Quite bothered he continued after my 20 “NOs” and later stopped at the border of the city (the mall is inside Mumbai not in Thane and the rickshaws are only allowed to drive in their own city/district). He didn’t want to let me go and grabbed my arm and then he suddenly spoke English. At least one word: “Kiss, kiss”! I was gone quite quickly. After the city border I had to take a second rickshaw to get to this mall. Same game again: one said no, the other wanted to charge me way too much. Then a young man came up to me and explained me how to use the bus. J He was gentleman (paid my ticket: 6Rs, not even 5cents), smart (scientist, organic chemistry) and open person (married to a women of a higher caste which was interesting to talk about). The mall was nothing spectacular except that I learned that Indians use a water hose instead of toilet paper. I’m sure I’ll never get used to this. What luck that I’m a woman… always carrying a bag full of useful things like tissues for example. I got out of the mall only 1 hour later… but the travel was definitely worth the time.

So these were my first two days in Mumbai… most of the people here are very friendly and helpful, the city is huge and crowded and I’m looking forward to living more great moments. I hope you found it interesting.

Don’t forget to comment. ;-)