I’ve been working with a distributed team in India for more than 6 months now. Veena (Project Manager) and Shailendra (Functional Lead) have been coming to The Netherlands regularly and we have been working and socializing together since April so I was beginning to feel pretty comfortable with the Indian culture. But as I sit here late at night in a steamy Calcutta apartment with a fan whirring so loudly overhead that it somehow manages to drown out my own thoughts but not the baying of a group of dogs 8 stories below, I now understand that I understood nothing about India.
There are travel adds on TV in Europe that carry the slogan “Incredible India”. They show pictures of mountains and beaches and elephants and temples. All very cool stuff. But I have seen none of those things.
I have seen cities, with gleaming towers rising out of abject poverty, seemingly oblivious to the garbage strewn filth and shanty towns that surround their feet. I have seen modern shopping malls and state-of-the-art airports reached only by unmarked roads that are clogged with cars and buses and bicycles and tuk-tuks and cows and chickens and goats and people. My god, the people!
There are so many people in the cities who have come here from the countryside that the rising middle class and rising wealth of the country are almost invisible. Or maybe it is better to say that the middle class seems completely lost in the unfathomable contrast between injected, international wealth and the daily poverty of the masses. How can these two extremes exist in one place? Maybe it’s just the sheer volume of it all. If 110 million, 120 million, 130 million (whatever large number of people you want to throw out) has reached some level of middle class status that might numerically be comparable to the US or Western Europe, it is still relatively insignificant here. Because that also means that there are more than 980 million people still living in poverty. Miserable, hot, urban poverty. Just waiting for change. It’s like nothing that I have seen before…even in Johannesburg in South Africa. And yet here it is somehow a different type of poverty than in Africa. In Johannesburg the poverty was overrunning what was once a prosperous city, relentlessly seeping in and eroding the sense of hope. Here, it is prosperity that is overrunning what was once impoverished, spreading hope slowly outward among the people, getting their attention, building motivation and industriousness.
And you know what? The advertisements on TV in Europe are right. India is incredible! It’s a bit cliché to say it, but it is so true that it must be repeated once again. This country assaults all five of your senses, all at once, and with enough stimuli to overwhelm even the most seasoned traveler. It was refreshing for me. An excellent adventure with incredible food, exciting cultural differences, and very welcoming people. As soon as we got off the plane in Mumbai, we were treated like rock stars. Doors opened. People moved to the side and stared. We were somehow perceived as the agents of prosperity. And not just to the beggars, but everyone has treated us that way. It’s as if they think that we have the authority to open a new factory or start a new business, employ more people, or build a new building It’s an odd feeling being stereotyped as such, and for me at least, it immediately placed a sense of responsibility on my shoulders.
I've put together a few pictures from the trip. The business aspect was actually pretty intense, so I didn't get to get out and about too much. My colleague took a lot of video, so I've posted some of that as well. Rest assured that I'll be back and I will hopefully get a chance to see some of those mountains and monuments and elephants and ....
cows....
...and supposedly crocodiles in this lake.
A typical Calcutta taxi.
Brings a whole new meaning to "living on the streets", doesn't it?
I've never been crazy about sari's, but when placed into context - in India -, I found them beautiful. I especially liked seeing the women wearing them on the back of a motorcycle, zipping through the traffic clogged streets.This video is right outside our offices in Calcutta. It shows the contrast that I mentioned above. However, it is important to note that there is no tension between the two extremes like I've seen in other cultures. I frequently saw members of my development team hanging out in these shacks for a smoke break with the locals. Another video from CNN also shows some of the disparity.
We stayed in a very nice, 3 bedroom apartment...complete with servant. Cooked, cleaned, slept on the kitchen floor. Very nice guy, but uncomfortable situation for someone not used to being waited on. You all know Beth, right?
A little different than the fish stalls on the butter market in Haarlem.And for those of you who have only encountered "off-shoring" via some prime time news program, let me assure you that it is very real, and it is only going to continue to grow. Don't let the stereotypes fool you, and don't be complacent. Denial will only put you out of a job quicker. Agree or not, this country is bursting at the seams with offices like the one in this video.
Now I know how the Romans did it. Forget about the 14 year old poster child for OSHA working without a safety harness 5 stories above the ground on hand-wired scaffolding. Watch the guy on the right with the bag of sand on his head. At the end of the video you'll see his colleague on the 9th floor of the building. I can only imagine the directions that they got that morning - "Move this pile of sand to the top of the building so that the bricklayers have it to work with tomorrow." Unbelievable. For 4-5 euros a day, why would you invest in heavy equipment?
We had a beautiful fall day here in The Netherlands, and what better way to enjoy the day than to get out in the woods. 
