India 03 2008
International Trip to India
My overwhelming experience from my short stay in India was the astonishing kaleidoscopic variety of India and the apparent chaos was quite mind-boggling. It strikes me that there are four things for essential success in adapting to India:
1. Patience - You'll need patience everywhere in India. Patience… in terms of getting anywhere in the
city. The roads, streets, alleys, dirt tracks, railways, underpasses, overpasses, pavements are heaving with
big cars, little cars, auto-rickshaws, motorbikes, bikes, lorries, cows, people, people…so many people all
jostling for space. Despite the incessant beeping of horns and queuing it all seems to be in good humour
with little signs of impatient road rage that we experience here in the West. Even so, there are still no words
to describe the traffic. As one Put-put driver proudly told me, “After visiting our city, even Michael
Schumacher said he would not dare drive in Mumbai!”
Patience…in terms of service. A visit to the Central Cottage Industries Emporium a stone’s throw
from the Gateway to India, was an experience in itself. Aimed at the tourist trade, the shop was a Mecca of
Indian ‘goodies’ from bags to boxes, rugs to wooden elephants. Though a feast for the eyes the shop would
certainly not win any prizes for its customer-centricity. Wandering aimlessly from department to department
picking up souvenirs to take home was virtually impossible. After filling my hand-woven basket I was then
told politely, I’d have to back-track and obtain a hand-written form from each department to be filled in by
each departmental salesperson. And, when I say, ‘Department’, this usually consisted of only one or two
shelves. Having received my forms, I was then sent to a beautiful, at least 100 year old mahogany ‘Paying
kiosk’ supervised by a very officious-looking gentleman with pince-nez glasses who rubber stamped all my
forms after payment. Finally, I was sent to the packing desk where my various gifts were individually
wrapped. I’m sure if necessary, there would have been someone else to carry my packages to my waiting
taxi. It was a fantastic experience for those of us who know a retail world where buying no longer requires
any human interaction but I’m sure would require the patience of a saint after time. Incidentally, the
Emporium is a Governmental venture where prices are fixed, is all that bureaucratic rubber-stamping an
everyday occurrence in the public sector… I couldn’t possibly say.
2. Connections - In India you need to get to know the people before you can hope to make a true
connection with the country. The basic values of the society seem to revolve around the family. The
business culture seems to reflect this as many Indian businesses appear to be family owned. An extension
of this is the fact that the social fabric in India is hierarchical. Indians base their identity on their family, their
religious group and to some extent (still) their caste membership. There are certainly distinct zones within
the Megalopolis of Mumbai categorized by religion; Muslim area, Parsi area, Zoroastrianism areas etc. etc.
Even though these zones are squeezed side-by-side, the inhabitants of each zone visit their own local
mosques, local temples, local pavement-side shops, whether they sell perishable goods, electric items or
plastic pipes all owned by members of the same ‘group’. This begs the question would western-style
business and especially retail conglomerates which aim at all spectrums of society work in India?
3. Awareness of local customs – Apparently, there are 22 major languages in India, with 900 minor
ones. As a European this is not so difficult to comprehend and as such, is not so hard to understand the
importance of learning local customs. For example, eating only with the right-hand, does that headshake
from side to side mean yes, no or maybe or their insatiable appetite for playing cricket. And is it a custom
that everyone from a waiter to a security guard at the Prince of Wales Museum has a business proposition?
4. Knowledge of how the Indian worldview is different from the western. In India the worldview is not
linear like in the west but cyclical. A visit to Elephanta was hugely important to providing an insight into how
the majority of Mumbains (Bombayers?) view the structure of their lives but the evidence is all around…from
taxi drivers with fairy-lit Ganesh’s on their dashboards to what seems like unbelievable acceptance, in the
eyes of a westerner, of many bare-footed individuals scavenging in the rubbish. Almost all of life's major
events are widely believed to be predetermined and thus beyond the control of the individual. Although,
having said that, I was struck by how hard-working, proud of India’s achievements and ambitious,
particularly the students we met, are…
…perhaps they are not so different from us, after all.
