Irrational over-exuberance at India Inc?

Over the last couple of months I read books about India, in part as preparation for my first job in India. I just finished reading The Elephant Paradigm by Gurucharan Das. Before that, I read In spite of the Gods by Edward Luce and also India Unbound by Gurucharan Das. All these books tout the supposedly phenomenal growth rate, the booming middle class, democracy, business process outsourcing (BPO) etc. I came across an article titled Bye Bye NRI written by someone who lives in Washington DC like me. There are reams of writing like this, all based on a core central theme, that the Indian elephant, note, it is not the tiger anymore, cannot be stopped. They sometimes also briefly touch upon on the problems but the overriding theme seems to be India will be a super power to reckon with.

I am not sure if all this writing is based on hope because these authors seem a little carried away and I would add a "Reader Beware" in bold. Before being dismissed as a pessimist, I would like to say I am more of a realist. On the other hand I hope the day comes when 1 rupee will fetch 2 dollars. But I have doubts about whether these authors really tried living and working like the "bright young professionals" who are part of the “India Shining” brigade.

I had to visit Bangalore for a couple of days. The flight to Bangalore was for 7:30 am and I left home around 5:30 am. There is this turn to get into the airport and at 6:00 am on a Friday it was chaotic. The traffic lights were not working and there were no cops and it was surreal. There were cars, cabs buses trying to get into the airport and people walking to the airport. There was also other traffic in different directions held up in the middle and there was this mess with vehicles separated by an inch or two honking and people yelling. This was in Mumbai, India's commercial capital. It took around half an hour with people getting out of cars to direct traffic.

People rushed into the plane, as usual and the door was closed at 7:20 am. Then the same scene was repeated as there was a traffic jam with planes taking off and landing and our plane finally took off at 8:40 am, more than an hour behind schedule. The fun continued in Bangalore, India's Silicon Valley, where it took us 45 minutes to get out of the airport, amidst the wild honking and smoke from the exhaust.

I can go on and on with many such stories, but the point is the infrastructure is crumbling as it was when I left the country. You can get a cell phone in a day, but the number of dropped calls is too many to count. You can walk out with a high speed wireless internet card in 10 minutes, which at times is slower than a 28 kbps modem.

I did visit Leela Palace in Bangalore and it was great though the cocktails were close to 25 dollars, due to the weak dollar, oops I mean the “strong rupee”. It was more like the world described by these authors. A world that is very far out of reach for about 99 % of the population. Maybe that number has improved from 99.7% from before. Unfortunately, once you get out of the hotel in your air conditioned, chauffeured car you will enter the life of the rest of the Indians: potholes, traffic jams, honking and the heat and dust which fortunately, the authors and I, do not have to deal with while getting excited about reading an article about the number of cell phones in India exceeding 250 million.

Ear Plugs, Chini Kum and Yes Sir!

On my flight to India from NY to Mumbai, I got ear plugs which came in handy during the flight. I put them in my pocket and forgot about it. After eating some nice dosas with some chutney and piping hot sambhar, I tried to get some sleep around 4:00 am. Since Mumbai is a city that never sleeps, the noise never stops. This is when the ear plugs came in handy and have been using them ever since. In fact these days I can manage up to 6 hours of continuous sleep. All the honking outside is muffled and you should be able to sleep through a few of the doorbell chimes which begin around 6:00 am. I usually manage to sleep through the newspaper guy and the milk guy and sometimes even the guy who delivers flowers for puja. Soon I hope to sleep through the ironing guy and the chappati lady and maybe the daily thrash collection. So remember to buy nice earplugs before booking tickets to India.

In the office where I work, there are always these peons or attenders as they are referred to in this part of the world. This is common in most companies. One of their jobs is to keep asking you if you need coffee or tea. Depending on what you ask for you either get coffee or tea flavored milk with around 5 table (not tea) spoons of sugar. You need to usually say "Chini Kum" (less sugar). One afternoon after a meal with my dad and his colleagues, I needed some caffeine and ordered black coffee to outwit these guys. I got a nice steaming cup of dark coffee and I sipped it and nearly spat it out. Since I was not taking milk, the attender out of concern for me added extra sugar than usual (7 - 8 table spoons?). Diabetes is an epidemic in this country but they are still trying to figure out what the cause could be.

Another bit of advice I received was to never say "No" to any request from bosses. I am here to implement software for a business and while it is not building a space shuttle for NASA it is a pretty intricate system. In my first round of meetings I was asked if things would be up and running in 2 months. Being out of the country for a long time I gave an honest response saying it would not be possible, which was the wrong answer. The correct approach supposedly is to agree and then take your own time to do it (or not do it for that matter). What is more important is to agree to the demands of the higher ups.

So, most of the times you will never get a direct or an honest response. I remember talking to the jeweler a couple of nights before my sister's wedding. I made the mistake of asking him if I could pick up a necklace at 9:00 pm. Obviously his answer was an emphatic yes. I showed up at 9:30 pm ready for pick up. The jeweler informed me it would be 10 minutes. I said OK and sat down. Twenty minutes later he asked me if I wanted coffee or tea or juice perhaps. I said I am fine, just let me have the necklace and go home and sleep and he said...Just 10 more minutes sir, some final polishing. Twenty minutes later I started getting fidgety and asked him if there was any point in me waiting and I started getting angry. He said I could go home and his man would deliver it in an hour. He did deliver it in a couple of hours. The story finally ended when he showed up a week after the wedding. My mom then gave him "wedding" sweets and said Oh I need to pay you for the necklace and the guy was like no way I came to ask about the wedding, not to collect money. After a little bit of coaxing he finally took the money acting as if he was being wronged. I guess you can only shake your head and say "Only in India".