India Chronicles Episode III

What's foreign what isn’t that's the question: Often when you live in another country for so long after being born in yet another, you tend to not know the difference between what used to be foreign to you and what IS foreign to you today. For me, what used to be foreign for a long long time was home for a long long time and now is suddenly sort of foreign again. So, I still speak of the US in terms of the 'here' word. I am often caught stating things like "They had raised the toll on the bridges here last year" (here meaning SF bay). So, in fact, I am at some subconscious level still meandering the streets of SF.

About three months have gone by since I've moved back and the observations don’t tend to cease. This time around I decided to focus my thoughts on humor since they are the most entertaining to read. And before I start off, thank you for your feedback. It has been overwhelming to read so many people's reactions. Please forward the blog to others who might find it fun to read.

What's your street address:

From colonial times under the British rule, Indian cities have been planned. The new system of placing every city on a grid before planning the streets and buildings never hit the developers here. So, all of new development has been close to chaotic. Here is the actual scene inside the boardroom meeting of city planners as I see it. Sets of construction companies bring darts with the shapes of buildings attached to the tails and the whole city that needs to be developed is charted on a moist soil floor. These builders then bid for space and the one that wins some is allowed to throw the darts on the designated area. Wherever the darts stick in the soil, the builder can build a building. If you see some of the new suburbia that has been developed it is a classic case of such planning. Buildings are erected where there should have been streets or parks. There is literally no planning for free space in any area as commercialization perks up the real estate prices. As a result, street addresses are non-existent. Every address here usually has a building name, suite number, floor number, landmark name, alternate landmark name, an optional third landmark name, cross street name, above-under landmark name, street name, nearest street name, nearest major highway name (if applicable), city, district, township, state and zip code!!!! No, I am not kidding. I recently called a cable company to get cable at my new apartment and they asked me my street address. Since my building is relatively new, I promptly started giving my address as:

93 Tarangan (Sharmishta), Thane (West), 400 602

After a long conversation with the customer service representative, I realized how far from the 'truth' this address was. I was enlightened in the true sense that my actual street address is:

93 Tarangan (Sharmishta) tower number II, 9th floor suite 3, Next to Cadburys compound, near Mission view hospital, Mangal pandey rd, crossing of Eastern express highway& LBS Marg, Off Eastern express highway, Near Wagle estate, Thane West, District Thane, Maharashtra, India 400 602

I guess they forgot the following part of the address: 'Planet Earth, 4th planet from the sun, near Venus, next to Mars, 156 billion miles from the Sun, very close to the moon. Galaxy number E 00082ACCU...... :)

Based on this I have devised a theory for street addresses. The theory assumes that no geometrical point on the map of India has accurate three-dimensional coordinates, so, there is always an error in measurement no matter what angle you measure it from (accurate per the theory of relativity & the theory of limits in mathematics). Now, when you give a short address, you are locating a point using one set of dimensions. The probability of locating that point increases to 1 as the number of relative coordinates increases. So, for n -> infinity (n= number of reference points in an address); the probability of locating that address ->1.

C for Collections; C for Chakkas:

This is by far my favorite topic to write on and you might understand why. This is the funniest of things I've discovered thus far. Back in the days when credit cards were first introduced in India, fraud and defaulters were rampant as collection agencies tried to get a grip on how to collect on delinquent accounts. The same for home and car loans. With the economy taking off, these guys had to get smarter faster to avoid a steep loss rate. A few years ago, just frustrated with the amount of fraud, some institutions started hiring ex-con's and unemployed youth as collectors on delinquent accounts. These people were hired by a third party, so, if anyone sues them, they could plead innocence stating that they were not directly involved in the hiring process. Bottom line was that everyone came to know of this strategy and that caused a lot of disrepute to these institutions as stories unfolded of how 'thugs of the bank' beat up some guy down the street because his payment was misplaced by the bank etc. These institutions had to suffer from the judiciary and had to eventually abandon this tactic of collection. And there come the Chakka's !!
What is a Chakka?
A Chakka is a Eunuch. A male dressed as a female with or without male genitalia. (Mostly without). These are individuals that have accepted begging and prostitution as their professions. For some strange reason, giving of alms to a 'chakka' is considered a good omen in Indian culture. So, the chakka's thrive on the superstitious minds and make their cash. Refusing cash to a chakka on an auspicious day like the opening of your new outlet may lead to poor sales is the kind of belief in the people's minds here. Chakka's wander in groups and carry obnoxiously loud instruments. They go around banging these instruments, so, if you are in no mood to give to a chakka, you will, to get rid of the obnoxious sounds. The chakka's at times are also known to be aggressive in taking your money by harassing you without actually picking your pocket. You get so fed up of them that you pay the money for them to get away. The more persistent you are the better bargain you get on them.
In the last few years, these financial institutions have hired chakka's to collect on accounts. These guys form gangs and virtually attack a defaulters place often playing drums loudly outside their homes till he/she lands up paying the debt or agreeing on something. If you falter on your promise, they will come the next day with increased vigor and destroy your happiness. The hiring of chakka's has been the best move they have made yet. The loss rate is down and the chakka's are employed.... win win situation?


Train tales:

You are not a true Bombayiite as you are not a true New Yorker unless you have traveled the Subway system. Almost everyone living here and the suburbia at some point of time in their life have taken the local trains. The Mumbai local train network boasts carrying 10 million passengers a day on its three-pronged network. The longest lines span about 60 miles end to end. The Mumbai local train service is split into three the Western Railway, Central Railway and the Harbor railway lines spanning the edges of Mumbai. With the boastful claims of carrying numerous passengers come interesting stories of overcrowded passenger compartments. For instance, when a person tells you that his train compartment was empty today what he really means was that he had enough room to wiggle is toe without hitting the person next to him. Train compartments ideally seat about 95 passengers and are mostly full at about 195 of them during rush hours. This gives rise to some innovative time killing techniques. After all, you can stand only as long in a sweaty humid chamber smelling your neighbor’s armpit or admiring his overgrown nasal hairline without passing out and collapsing. So, the 'regulars' of the rush hour trains have music groups. They bring instruments and some of them, proficient singers entertain everyone else (without choice) by singing songs. These are great stress busters for a journey that may last up to 2 hours. Another very unique innovation is the play of cards in an overcrowded compartment. I will try to describe this as well as I can in the next few lines. Card playing groups standing in the middle of an overcrowded compartment assemble under a small briefcase that is usually placed on top of the handrails used by passengers to hold onto while they stand. The bag has a rubber strap or a rubber band running across it. This band holds the deck facing downwards. Cards are distributed at the hand railing level and held close to the face while players look upwards to the briefcase. The dealt cards are snuck under the rubber band as they lay facing downwards as the game continues. These people have adjusted timings of the games so well that they have the right person drop out at the right times when his destination is about to arrive.
Now down to something more basic. The question is often asked as to the method of getting into and out of such overcrowded trains. That is a skill that Bombayiites have achieved. Here is the secret for you if you ever travel the trains here. All you do it align yourself in a way that you show 'intent to board' the train. That is, let others notice your interest in boarding a train. Then, you just stand in their way and perform the 'shavaasana' from yoga. The shavasanaa is the yogic meditative workout that asks one to put the body in the state of a dead person. In practising the shavasanaa, your 'body' literally gets carried into the train compartment with the force of the people boarding it. Now, to getting off the train. This is a slightly more difficult task and involves reconissance. You have to know your stations and start enquiring in advance as to which side the platform is expected. Once you know that, you have to nudge ahead and make way towards the door asking everyone in the way if they want to disembark at that station. Once you are behind a person that wants to get off at that station, you can start working on the shavaasaana part. You will be carried out of the train without much effort of your own. Newbies often get stuck at the back of the compartment and try to struggle through the crowd last minute. In such cases, the crowd behaves like weed at the bottom of shallow lakes. The crowd either sucks you back into the compartment or throws you out in an instant. You are at their mercy, so, make a sorry face if you're ever stuck in this situation. And not to worry if you ever get off at the wrong station, just make a loud noise telling the fellow passengers, they will pick you back in right up.

There are far too many interesting train stories about how I have personally traveled locally and inter state and how the journey itself is a major part of the trip. Long distance trains and overnight trains have their own interesting attributes. People tend to behave like they are in refugee camps aiding and assisting others and enjoying their way to the destination. I think I will leave it to the next episode to write about how I have traveled on train tops, the space between two cars, on door handles, windows etc. And yes, people, BART is Boring.. !

GM is not for General Motors:

It stands for Genetically modified products. When I bought a pack of dozen oranges from Costco and let them rot for a month in my storage bin in my apartment, little did I know that the Genetic modifications in them would make them look the same after such a long time? It is at that time that I realized what I was eating was far from what was growing in my backyard growing up. I hate to admit it, but such food always made me feel uncomfortable. It is very evident from the kind of produce that is available here that GM does indeed M the hell out of everything. Every produce in India is tiny and intense in taste. It is as though the same fruit was shrunk into a smaller size whilst retaining the flavor. The first time I had a tangerine here it was like having a starburst. The intense flavor took me by surprise. The same goes for salts and sugars. There is no way that you can add anywhere near the amount of salt in your food here as in the US. The salt is so strong in taste it's almost pungent. Veggies appear smaller as they should be. Even the meat, chicken etc don’t have too much flesh around their thighs, they are all lean, but then, they don’t eat at McDonalds either :)


Something for the Marketing brains:

Somehow Marketing of products is still to evolve to a mature phase. Not enough money is pumped into marketing technology and research. Marketing research is still at a primitive stage in this country, but it is developing with growth in the economy. In these times Marketing gimmicks are at times interesting and at times just plain downright ridiculous. One of the obsessions of marketers placing their products in the marketplace, especially when they don’t really have a clear advantage over the nearest competitor is to use an acronym. I will give an instance of ceiling fans. Now, how different is one ceiling fan from another. Yes, you can make the argument that one is more efficient in circulating the air than another at the same speed. All you need to do is make the inefficient one run faster. The bottom line impact on power consumption is just marginally different. So, herein come the marketers. They bring a new acronym, Behold the NEW Crompton ceiling fan with 'PVAC technology'. So, what is PVAC?. It is nothing but 'Power Vortex Air Circulation' technology. Sounds cool eh? ! All commercials of this fan will focus on the 'New' 'Radical' 'efficient' PVAC technology. This new wave of ceiling fans that's going to revolutionize how air will circulate in a room. All this is is just a marketing gimmick. We all know that all ceiling fans use vortex flow motion to circulate air in a room to give cooling. So, what the hell indeed is PVAC? Absolutely nothing. Just another term to give create a non-existent differentiation. This is an example of non-existent acronym being created and put into use. There are others that exist and make sense and are abused and sold to customers. Examples like PMPO (Peak musical power output) were used and abused to confuse the buyers into buying substandard stereo components in the past. The consumer is getting more educated about this now with the outreach of the internet and discussion forums and product reviews that it is getting harder for manufacturers to making confusing or false claims about their products.

I want to write a quick note about these write-ups. I know that they highlight the funny aspects of life in India. What is humor for us is real life for someone else. In the following episodes of my chronicles I am going to focus on some of the serious aspects of living in India. What makes it tick? What makes it survive in an ever-changing world?

India Chronicles - Episode II

It has been nearly three months since I landed back here and many things have changed. Firstly, I have gotten accustomed to some of the nuances of living here. Secondly, I have not yet killed my interior decorator for overshooting the timeline for completion of my apartment by about a month (& running), so, my patience towards incompetence and unprofessionalism has increased. Things are looking upward though in terms of the opportunity and challenges that lie ahead. In this Episode of my chronicles, I will be touching on some of the lesser known aspects of business and the interesting attributes of people and how they are the same all over the world.

Made in China/ Korea/ Japan:

China is dominating the market in almost all fragments of business these days. In the US, as we see, the consumer durables are virtually all made in china. If they were to sell the same goods here in India for the same price, no one would buy them. So, they are deeply discounted and sold in the Indian market to match the purchase power of the Indian consumer. That leads us to believe that the $4.50 nailcutter you buy at the cornerstore in your city is actually made for under $ 0.75 as it is sold for a little less than $1.0 here in the Indian markets !! A new Chinese brand of electronic equipments called Haier electronics has been launched here in India. Their stuff is priced about 10% less than the nearest Korean competitors. While the quality of the products is still under the radar, I am sure they will come out ahead with their TQM goals in place. Eventually, these products will hit the US markets and cause a lot of downward pressure on pricing for the in-house walmart brands etc. The Chinese manufacturing sector is steamrolling as the economy is expanding. As I travel, I see rolls of steel laden on massive 18 wheeleers headed straight for the port in Mumbai. Ironically, all that steel is headed for China for the immense infrastructure expansion that they are investing in !! Lesser amount of quality steel is locally consumed although infrastructure development here seems to be growing. In the Chemical sector, the chinese compete fiercely for price and quality. Although a majority of all raw material expenses are controlled by one Reliance petrochemicals & it's b**ch the Indian government, these cannot be sustain if the economy is to grow and imports are to grow correspondingly. The Korean product is also one to be observed. About 10-12 years ago when LG was first launched here in India, everyone was laughing at their quality and now LG and Samsung have captured the electronics markets. Large Japanese corporations like Sony no longer differ in their high quality and fail on their pricing, no wonder Sony just laid off 10,000 people. The Japanese giants are collapsing in their market share in asia and they are losing to the same people they virtually mentored. I have high respect for the Korean manufacturing sector that has put Japan to it's knees. In the US, we see the same trend with Hyundai and Kia gradually gaining ground.

Twist of fate:

People believe in Karma, fate and religious superstition a lot. Herein I want to cite some examples of the funniest top 10 superstitions that are most common and almost taken to be dogma: In David Letterman style
# 1: Do not proceed if a cat crosses the street (let someone else cross before you) (especially bad if the cat is black)
# 2: Do not shatter glass in the house (especially mirrors)
# 3: Do not crack knuckles in the home
# 4: Do not clip nails at night or on Saturdays
# 5: Do not start new projects without consultations with the local astrologers (they have the best set of dates to start new projects)
# 6: Do not walk under a banyan tree at night
# 7: Do not give money with the left hand
# 8: Do not enter a new home/ office with your left foot (these people should watch the movie 'my left foot')
# 9: Do not make excessive profit on the first sale of the day (for mom & pop retailers. These people land up making 'good day deals' early in the morning)
# 10: Do not forget to put a black dot on your kid's face. It absorbs all the evil radiation emanated by jealous and yet powerful people.
As a result of all these superstitions, I decided to do everything on the most inauspicisous days possible. My mother calls me a rogue, a rebel without a cause and wants me to COMPLY with POLICY. Now I know where that gene comes from.

Do whatever it takes to make it work:

In a poor country where resources are not in abundance the principle of functioning at the minimum subsitence level is observed to it's limit. Under these circumstances, aesthetics takes a back seat, possibly the last seat in the house. A common example is the drugs and packaging of commercially available OTC drugs. Virtually no effort is put in making the packaging glossy or attractive. At times, the drug colors are not altered and they are at times grey or black in color. Tablets dont show the gloss we see in a tylenol for instance and capsules dont radiate their red color as much either. That way, the extra expense of making it 'sexier' is saved. It is not always that this saving is passed onto the consumer, but, competition forces most to do so. ISO 900X certified companies have dirty premises and unclean shop floors. Almost none of the companies I have visited have put any effort in making it look good. Here is an extreme example of this attribute at work. I'd heard of a reputed local company that makes a highly corrosive brominde. Bromine stinks, corrodes and is a dangerous solvent to handle. So, in the ideal world, all equipment that handles liquid bromine needs to be glass lined or plastic lined. This manufacturer was known to export his bromine based intermediate. As I was passing by, I thought I would pay him a visit. To my surprise his plant consisted of everything from plastic pipes, straws, water hoses, 2 liter coke bottles and milk/ gasoline gallons plus carboys. The whole unit did not have a single standardized reaction vessel !!! Such is the ingenuity of making it work at any cost. An ISO consultant would faint if he/she were to visit this unit. I was hoping he did not have a website... phew and he didnt. Another very interesting example of how economics works in a poor nation is the one of milk delivery guys. Milk is delivered in plastic or tetrapak containers in the cities, but, in rural and suburban areas, it is carried straight from the dairy in large vessels on motorbikes and delivered straight into your home milk container using a measure. These delivery guys ride motorbikes for miles. Since there is adulteration in the fuel, these bikes tend to die sooner than later. To offset the cost of dying bikes, the dairy farm guys collaborated with a local engg firm and started a piston making business. Now, they would mix gasoline with about 40% kerosene and virtually anything under the sun that has any calorific value. Such kerosene is heavily subsidized by the government for home use. It is bought from the government run institutions at the subsidized price and put to commercial use. They run the piston block till it corrodes and dies. Then get a new one from the local (self owned) store at cost and replace it !! The business thus remains viable.

More phone antics:

I realized that people here have developed an interesting way of stating phone numbers. the phone number 9983334777 will be stated as " double nine- eight- triple three- four- triple seven". When numbers exceed three they often use phrases like "five sixes after that" to constitute five sixes in a number. I get annoyed with this double-trouble BS and ask people to just state the number. It is a net new skill to be quick to understand and write a number down when some one promptly tells you a number in this fashion.

Corruption:

Corruption is not alien to any society. Even the US is out of the Top 10 most least corrupt countries in the world. The problem occurs when gross inefficiency is tagged along with corruption. If you pay someone kickbacks to get something done, it is not certain that that will really happen in a timeframe you desire. The Chinese government doesnt tolerate inefficiency in its proceedings and people are often punished severely for being a roadblock in the way of progress. Here in India, there is hardly any punishment of any form and hence no real accountability. Bribery and corruption is a way of life. Most people believe that corruption is good for society that it actually acts as a lubricant in the economic machinery. What they dont understand is that it causes a great gap in the income differentials between classes of society. Take for example, a simple boiler inspector for our zone. The guy is so rabidly corrupt that even if you give him the gold standard, he will ask for platinum. These guys get transferred from location to location very quickly, so, the interpretation of policy for the next guy becomes an easy mode of creating a scenario of non-compliance. Thus the next guy makes it an issue with the sole intention of accepting bribes/ gifts in exchange for a certification. Such a boiler inspector should be making about $ 120 a month and that would be more than sufficient amount of money for him to lead a decent lifestyle and be paid well for his educational level and skillset. In our case, this guy makes close to $ 4,000 a month. This money is not passed on to any lower income group and it gets stuck in his throat. So, a class of society has been created that doesnt deserve what it makes. Corruption has been the root of disaster in this society. We are very close to the bottom of that list and virtually nothing is done to build any form of accountability. Learning from other countries, I guess, the levels of corruption go down as the pressure to be corrupt goes down as the living standard improves with employment.

So much for this Episode. I have content for another episode, but, will be releasing it next month.

India Chronicles Episode I

Almost a month has gone by since I have returned to the homeland. I have some interesting experiences and observations to share for the made in USA and migrated to the USA brains.

Landing home:

As most of you know this was the most memorable of my journeys. I was held back in Korea for a day due to the closure of Bombay's airport due to flooding. The day my plane landed on one of the two airstrips here, it was flooded about a quarter of the way through. The baggage claim belt had been cleaned off the garbage and the bodies of people that were washed into it…. Eww! Then I was stranded at my wife's place in central Bombay because the road to the suburb I live in was washed away. To give you an idea of the amount of rainfall Bombay experienced during that downpour here is an interesting statistic. Three days of rain accounted for the annual water requirement of the city and its suburbs!

The weather:

The weather here has been moderate since that downpour and I had begun to forget how humid Bombay is. When you hold a glass of chilled water in your hand, the condensed water on the outside of the glass is at times more than what is inside. There were a couple of sunny days when it felt like you were walking around in a steam bath. In short, not fun at all. So, all of you bay area folks complaining about humidity, rest your cases now.

The techmology (sic):

The fastest cable connection you can get here is about 256Kbps. While that's not all that bad, you need to have a good relationship with the local provider (agent) and possibly host the central modem/ router. That way, you can control when you get customer service from him. The local guy here is upgrading his network, so, speeds of 1 Mbps are in the near future.

Everybody here has a cell phone. From the cabbie, to the street vendor, to the CEO of a firm. Not just that, they all have fancy cell phones. You will be a pariah if you walk in with your latest Motorazor and flash it out of your pocket. Here you can see brands like O2, mobile video messenger. My O2 phone has a 2.2 MP digital camera, a digital video recorder, a digital voice recorder, windows media player for mp3 files, a mmc card reader, web browser, complete outlook remote synchronization, MS office, e-fax reader & creator, acrobat reader and bluetooth wireless. So, all of you that thought bluetooth was dead, wake up and smell the coffee. I could sit with my phone and do practically anything. Did I mention the games? My son will tell you. Pretty much everything here happens on SMS. Unsolicited credit applications can be taken over SMS and most of the votes for contests are also taken over SMS. I've learnt that most of asia lives on SMS these days.

Work:

Work is very different. These people have redefined the terms SLA and follow-up. I started with a systematic project plan for the expansion of one of the units and realized that every event has a very low probability of occurrence and a large confidence interval. SLA is defined more as a 'service lapse agreement', so, the lapse in service then transforms into amnesia when it comes to obeying the payment terms. I am gradually learning the ropes, who does what. Who is worth how much? Who is reliable, who isn't etc. I spend a lot of time traveling between locations, offices and manufacturing units. I have stopped wearing cologne, because by the time I am back, I usually smell of Dimethyl ether or allyl butyrate or one of the longer names. I have blended in well with my peeps and people don't think of me as the 'phoren' (foreign) returned. In the work culture, a unit or office opens when it opens that's it. The notice board outside that states office hours is basically stating suggested office hours only. There is little respect for time and timeliness. Everyone gives you a time range to meet " I will meet you between 10 and 11" is more common than, "I will meet you at 10:30". Transport is unreliable and so very often commute distances are measured in time and not physical distances. In such case, the people are reluctant to arrive in advance for an appointment, they choose to give you a time range in which they anticipate arrival. Another specific irritation is with phone numbers. Every company gives out a dozen phone numbers. Most of the land lines are dead when there is heavy rainfall or a wind storm passes by, so, they take a chance and hope one of the lines is active. Also, everyone quotes their cell phones and keeps changing them every month. I am thinking of employing a person just to track the changing phone numbers of people. To add to the chaos telephonce exchanges add digits and prefixes to phone numbers altering them further.Things are complicated and your phone book will be very obsolete if you dont update it on a weekly basis.

People:

The people have always been and perhaps will be very myopic in their thinking. Being brown skinned, they imply that you are religious, conservative, are already married or about to get married. Being a businessman, they presume, you have political connections, are corrupt and dishonest etc. They still strongly bear the notion that through software development, they will eradicate poverty. Socially, there has been little change in thinking. The divorce rate has climbed in recent years and that is an indication that working class women are no longer tolerating the bullshit meted out to them by chauvinist husbands. It is an indication of progress. But, as Austin powers say's 'That's about it'. There is little change in casteism or the Indian form of racism as it is referred to. The same values and virtues are passed on without critical thinking or evaluation. Modernization in thought is mostly through the media and exposure to the western style of living.

TV/ Music:

Incredibly boring. Any normal cable subscription has about 80 channels and most of them have some form of boring sitcom showing. On other channels there is a cricket game being shown live or one from the past, mostly one in which India has won (which is a rarity). We have HBO and a couple of other movie channels. All movies are edited to be PG-13, so, you don't have to worry about wrong influences affecting your children. Ironically, rap songs are also edited for lyrics when about 99% of the people wont understands the words or references even if the track is slowed down. Almost all of music released today is remixed!!! All the old tracks are remixed and a video with a skimpily clad woman with silicones is often seen dancing in the rain. If you were to mute the TV in watching one of these videos and played any other remix in the background, I am pretty sure, it will feel like the video is for that song.

Me:

I have taken up the rigorous sport of badminton. It is the local equivalent of squash and kills calories. Nothing fits me anymore as I am becoming leaner by the day. We are planning on moving into our apartment if it gets ready by the 15 ^th Sept. I will be posting pictures soon. I have not washed my clothes, cooked, cleaned, washed or driven my own car. I am an unofficial spoilt brat again. Needless to say although the people have their priorities all wrongly aligned with life, I enjoy being here.

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