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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