Kuala Lumpur and my Indianization

Last weekend was a long one due to the Muslim Eid al-Fitr festival, which is celebrated by many here in India at the end of Ramadan. For the three days, some of the other international TCS trainees and me spontaneously decided to do a trip to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. Jiipie, my second Asian country ! And what an amazing trip. I am still not sure if I loved this city because of its actual greatness or because it was such a pleasant change to Chennai.

In front of Petronas Towers

Before I’ll elaborate a bit on the second part of the statement, I’ll quickly share my perception and experience in Malaysia. So on Friday morning 2am, a Spanish couple, a Mexican guey, a Brasilian gaucho, a French Monsieur and a Swiss Meitschi started their trip to Kuala Lumpur. We went to visit some mosques, the Petronas towers, some markets, Chinatown, some hindu temple and a historical city 2 hours away called Malaka. It was n amazing experience because KL is a very clean, organised, well-structured, well developed and extraordinary cosmopolitain city. Actually it felt as if we hardly got to know any real “malaysian” culture. Because Malaysia is a Muslim country, unfortunately many local sights and restaurants were closed due to Eid festival. I don’t know if the experience had been different at another point of time. Oh ya, by the way, it is also a shopping paradise. J A bit expensive, compared to India, but great and easy shopping places. The group of people was great, we had great fun and surely made the best of this weekend!

Traditional malaysian attire

Beautifully clean promenade in Malaka

To get back on the interpretation on why I liked KL so much: As described above, there is a huge contrast to India in terms of… almost everything. KL felt very similar to, let’s say, a Canadian Metro if you come from any big Indian city. I was quite surprised. I realised, that I had taken India a bit for an Asian standard, even though - if I just thought about it for a second – I would never even think of attempting a generalization of this diverse continent. But as I had never physically visited any other asian country, India had unconsciously become my Asia. Everyone reading this would not be surprised when I say that I was absolutely flabbergasted when I saw KL. J No dirt on the streets (and everywhere else), no constant noises, no animals on the street, an absolutely developed public transport system, etc.

The "modern" transportation system of Malaka :)

This surprise about my own perception made me think further: Have I become partially Indian? Does an individual while adapting to his/her country of residence loose earlier standards and values? Of course one does and I did so too, I had to – to a certain extend – to be able to live here at all. But to which extend would I have expected this to happen?

Some 2 weeks ago, I was sitting with the trainees (some more people than the KL crew were there at that point of time) and we were discussing the justification of gender roles in different geographies. To my own surprise, I strongly defended the point of view that a woman could be a housewife in certain regions of the world if she feels proud of it (which is usually not firstly an individual decision but often comes with the society’s perception of gender roles).

Sign at the train station in KL

At another occasion, I was discussing an incident with Fabian, which happened in TCS where somebody strongly violated a security policy (to use the network for personal messaging). The consequences taken by TCS were quite strong and in our European thinking maybe a bit exaggerated (the individual left the company). My point of view was clear: as a service provider, which works directly with our customers data and often even on their network, there can be no excuses for security violations. Once you accept a weak link in the security chain, the whole chain will tear. Fabian agreed to the point, but our argumentation was a bit different and my stand quite rigid. I realised that I had been exposed so much to this purely customer focussed servicing mentality which many Indian companies and individuals have that I wasn’t ready to move from my point of view towards a more tolerant and people focussed perspective.

What a funny anglicized language!

Like this there were another few incidents, which made me realize that values, which were very important to me before coming here, suddenly were not in the main spotlight anymore because I felt the need to adapt them to Indian society and business mentality. If sometimes people say that you wear “pink glasses” when you are in love, or wear a “different hat” according to the wished result of your thought process, that's how i feel. I am wearing the “Indian glasses” or a “culture hat” when discussing a topic. I have always defended the viewpoint that things, which seem absolutely wrong, might make sense in another geography (e.g. arranged marriage, armed fight against protesting violence). Now, I observe to have gone a step further… I am taking and defending the other point of view. This is a very interesting experience for me and I am curious about the development of it. How will I be able to stick to my own values and not just be taken into the values of the society I am in? Will I become more Indian than modern Indians (because they would probably not agree to my “new” ideas, but they are more “western” in thinking)? Time will tell…

Fish Therapy: little fish eat dead skin cells from your feet, absolutely uncomfortable feeling but very amusing...