Delhi ... Delights?

Saturday, August 7^th

Today’s post will be short and sweet as it mainly centers around the transportation from Bangalore to Delhi.

Morning Nothings

As per evidenced by the title of this section, the morning was packed jammed full of the every exciting…nothing. Got to sleep in a little bit, had a delightful breakfast (again with the most exceptional service I have ever encountered), and even got to do a little reading of the newspaper. I tell you what, Indians LOVE their celebrities (both Indian ones and American ones). They have two sections in their newspaper: one solely for celebs, gossip and tabloids and the other for everything else.

Oh yeah, and also this morning, while I was typing on my computer, midword I must’ve hit something and it starting typing in Chinese! No joke, it was converting all the phrases I was typing into Chinese characters. Though Tiffany said it was only spelling out things phonetically and it was really gibberish. Deflated, it soon became a HUGE source of frustration, because I could NOT, for the life of me, figure out how to turn it off. All the usual tricks didn’t work and there was nothing online. Well, that’s what I get for being cheap and still using only the trial versions of Microsoft Office.

Mid afternoon, we all pack up and head out to the airport. Interestingly enough, we were stopped outside the airport by armed men carrying AK-47s inquiring as to who we were and where we were going. Apparently, they were stepping up security to prepare for their Independence Day on the 15^th. India has been really weird about where we can take pictures (not even in a McDonald’s!), so I’m assuming taking a picture of the armed forces was a no-no. So unfortunately, this was the best picture I got:

Hey, subtlety is difficult. Especially for us, Americans.

Bangalore’s Airport

So it takes us forever to get to our gate as we were required to show passports and tickets just to enter the domestic terminal. We then went through security where our bags were scanned and everyone was given a wipe down (behind curtains for women) with a metal detecting wand. Interestingly enough the men and women were separated into different lines. There were 8 or so men’s lines. There were 2 for women. C’mon guys, everyone knows that female lines move infinitely slower than male lines. Have you tried to go to the bathroom at halftime in the Dean Dome? If you’re female, most likely all you ever did was try as the lines are like a bajillion miles long.

Okay, tangents aside, it was a long time until I got through security. Scarfing down a quick lunch, we then all board our aircraft heading to Delhi.

Bangalore to Delhi

The flight was really fun as our entire group was sitting together. Needless to say, it was a very noisy flight. And of course, everyone else is pretty much dead silent, sooooo yeah. But I enjoyed the discussions, the story-telling, the food trading when we received our meals (Hey American Airlines! Take note. Our two hour domestic flight got meals. My 4.5 hour flight from LA to Chicago with you didn’t even give me peanuts.).

I also read the entire airplane magazine in which I learned strange and awesome things…that I have since forgotten. Curse you, you school cram-culture! You destroyed my long term memory….

Delhi

We arrive in Delhi early evening. After taxing for a good half hour (Seriously, it was like we were riding a bus with wings), riding another bus for ten minutes or so, and navigating the airport, we finally make it to our new bus for the Delhi portion. We are exhausted at this point and it is hot. Bangalore didn't even compare to the sweaty, fly-infested sauna we walked out into.

The bus ride to our new hotel also took forever. We thought Bangalore’s traffic was bad? Psh, it was nothing compared to Delhi. The flies outside our window were making more progress than we were. The epitome of the situation? The ambulance sitting right next to us in traffic, lights flashing, and moving slower than we were. Cross your fingers that I don’t get run over by a rickshaw here in Delhi, because it might be more efficient and cheaper to let me bleed to death on the road.

Along the way, we saw lots of people parading around, carrying decorated sticks horizontally, banging drums and having a good ole time as they trekked down the road late at night. Apparently there is this major event going on right now, as people are making a 200 mile trek (I thinkkk?) from the Ganges River carrying water on their backs. And the water can never hit the ground either. So it’s kinda like the Olympic Torch type thing. Pretty cool, pretty cool.

The Park Hotel

We arrive at our new hotel, and are immediately greeted with by the hotel staff dotting our foreheads with the red powder and drinks being given to everyone. Hey, I can get used to this kind of service. Explorations revealed another cool pool, some weird IV tube furniture, hanging bead curtains, a rooms with identical head statues. Weirdly enough, the whole hotel looked like a 4 star hotel straight out of the sixties.

The most interesting part about the hotel though, was the fact that there wasn’t a window restriction. I.e. the windows opened as far as you wanted, allowing you to perhaps exit through this window and stand on the ledge outside. Not that I would recommend that anyone do that, because it’s super dangerous and we were pretty high up. You’d have to be pretty stupid to try and do that.

But all in all, we did safely arrive in Delhi. (There was no Interent – hence the immense delay in the postings). Tomorrow, the Taj Mahal! Hooray!!!!

Blackouts and Bhangra

Friday, August 6^th

Gooooood morning sunshine! The morning started off quite lovely with a once again AMAZING breakfast at our hotel. Sighhh, I’m going to miss this service. These people are the nicest people I’ve ever met.

The Bank

The first stop for the day is the conference room at a local hotel, where a bank representative from the Indian Overseas Banking, a nationalized bank, is waiting to give us a presentation. Apparently, the bank didn’t have a space big enough to accommodate 20 students and 7 adults, so we were housed in a bare, empty room with plastic chairs and a projector.

So, just to summarize:

1.       We listen to a long presentation that sounded like a brochure regurgitated. Oh yeah, and the guy thought the US had universal healthcare, because he saw it on John Q.

2.       We ask great, insightful questions to learn more about the business of banking.

3.       Just when we were patting ourselves on the back for our intelligent inquiries, a whirlwind blasts through the door, yabbering about traffic and meetings and being late.

4.       We proceed to have another presentation, followed by another Q and A. Except this time, we used up all our good questions already!

But that’s not all. The highlight of this business trip was the incessant blackouts that occurred during the meeting (or should I say the ‘no light’? hehe I crack myself up).

[Okay, some background. Every since we got here, there have been blackouts happening throughout the entire city. You would be in a store and then BAM the power would go out. Apparently, India has been growing much too quickly and has very poor infrastructure. Most of the time it would only before a few minutes, but sometimes it would be for an hour or more.]

But the funny thing? The man didn’t even blink an eye during the presentation. Like not even a slight falter in his sentence. And we were thrown into pitch blackness. So after several questions during the Q&A, I decided to finally mention the gigantic elephant in the room, and inquire as to how the blackouts affected business. I was a little worried that it might be considered poor taste to talk about it, since he didn’t mention it at ALL.

So I asked. And he didn’t understand. So I asked again. And he responded with an entire explanation of how money flow causes a growth in technology. And the whole time, the room is silently cracking up at this ABSURD answer that didn’t even address the issue. Even the other bank guy in the room was snickering behind his hand. I tell you what, it was the hardest thing ever trying to keep a straight face with everyone around me snickering. Eventually, Dr. Mur’ray tried to clarify the mistake, but we got the SAME ANSWER. We gave up after about 15 minutes. Ah well. They did give us tea, coffee and biscuits afterwards, so it wasn’t a completely useless visit.

Egon Zender International

The next stop, after lunch, was to the tenth floor of a very fancy building where Egon Zender International was housed. For those of you unfamiliar (as I was up until about 5 minutes into the presentation), Egon Zender is a headhunter. Not the bones-through-nose, skulls-on-spikes headhunter, but an executive search firm, designed to find your next company a CEO, or HR director, or CFO, or whatever.

We were put into a small room that had a conference call set up. So we were basically staring at ourselves on a giant flatscreen tv. We were all slightly confused. Was this presentation going to be virtual? Turns out it wasn’t. The head of the company came to talk to us, and he was actually a fantastic speaker. Used a lot of American slang and idiomatic expressions, very funny… And this guy could read people. An expert in body language.

However, the most impressive part (at least for poor, old sieve-for-a-memory Ellen) was the fact that he had us say all our names the first time we spoke, and he remembered them whenever we spoke again! That got him an approving nod plus golf clap combo in my book.

I still have no idea why that video camera was on the whole time, though. Super distracting.

All in all, a very interesting visit. The guy was super charismatic and made all of us want to go into that business after that presentation. However, the adults didn’t like him apparently, because he went to the University of Chicago business school? Any business people reading this that can provide more insights on that?

Dinner with the Fam

After a round of filmed interviews with David and Damon (that may or may not have ended with me being held at knife point), I left the hotel to grab dinner with Andrew, a friend of the family. [When I was at our family reunion earlier this summer, my cousin Steve  (who has been coming to India for years) offered to arrange contacts in several of the cities I was visiting. Andrew was one of such contacts.]

So all I know at this point is that Andrew is planning on picking me up from my hotel at 7:30 and is taking me back to his house for dinner. That is all the information that I know. After being slightly late (power went out and I had to sprint down ten floors of stairs in the dark), I am directed to a van where I see a man, his wife, and his daughter waiting for me. A brief introduction confirms that yes, this is Andrew and his family.

Ok which do you want first? The cultural revelations and discoveries? Or ‘de sh*t dat went doooown’? We’ll start with Cultural:

Andrew and his family live in a small, fairly nice apartment, with a kitchen, living room, and two small bedrooms. They were all Christian so on the walls were lots of pictures of Jesus and Mary and other religious paraphernalia. It was cute too how when I inquired about some of the framed pictures of people, he would pick it up and kiss the person in the picture.

However, Andrew and his family didn’t live alone. His brother and his family lived below him and his widowed sister and family lived above him. His two brothers also came over to visit so it was a huge get together with everyone super excited to see me. It was so incredibly welcoming! One of the small boys (about ten years old) made me a picture of a car and his name (Joshua) made from glitter. Awww! Still have it :).

It was great getting to tour the different apartments and to talk with everyone. Everyone was all about making me comfortable, bringing me drinks, food, showing me around, letting me pick out the music (which I actually hate doing. Ahh! So much pressure!).

I also learned the reason behind the blackouts (poor infrastructure, electricity trade agreements that weren’t holding up, an inefficient government, etc) and how they were getting worse (power used to be out about two hours a day. Now it’s up to four.).  Everyone also explained the reason behind the pubs closing at 11:30 in Bangalore (a woman got stabbed in a club in 2007 - ouchie).

But it was really great getting the chance to meet and talk with real Indians. Businessmen don’t count because they are a bit secluded from the “real” India, and the people on the streets are generally trying to sell you something (“You like, madam? Special price, just for you”). The power did go out at one point for about an hour, but a battery powered light and candles, made it so it wasn’t much of an issue.

Now for the Evening Events:

Okay, the explanation I got was that they work hard Monday through Friday. So the weekend is the “party time”. Sounds like good logic to me! And let me just say, these men can throw down. It was a ton of fun actually. Andrew makes his own wine (which was delicious), but beer seemed to be the preferred drink.  One of Andrew’s brothers was a DJ and so he played some great music. Most of it was a combo of Bollywood and Western music.

What was the most fun about the evening was the dancing. Everyone was having a blast dancing every which way in the living room. I learned some bhangra too! Sahweeeeet. It was so cute how Andrew pulled his young teenage daughter out to the dance floor and she couldn’t stop giggling from embarrassment. Ohhh been there, done that. Totally can empathize with being embarrassed by the antics of one’s parents :P

The interesting thing was that apparently no one eats dinner until after everyone is done drinking and socializing and whatnot. I was a little iffy as to whether they were waiting for me to ask to eat (while as I would normally wait until someone else inquired about eating), so dinner didn’t really happen til 11:30 and it was just me and Andrew. The food was amazing! But I hope everyone else ate earlier and weren’t waiting until after I had eaten…

I got back to the hotel around 12:30. Everyone piled into the van to say goodbye and take me back. Awww! How touching. However, Indians don’t really have the concept of a D.D. (despite the overabundance of ‘don’t drink and drive’ signs everywhere), but I got back safely and intact :). All in all, a great eventful evening and I really enjoyed the chance to meet Andrew and his family. [Thanks, Steve!]

Well that’s it for today. Tonight was the last night in Bangalore, as tomorrow afternoon we head out to Delhi, the capital city of India. Ciao!

It Takes a Village

**Disclaimer: I have not had Internet access for the past three or four days. I will post all the other posts periodically until I am caught up. Plus I won’t be able to post pictures still for a few days. Sorry for the delay!**

Thursday, August 5^th

Why hello there. Yes, I know I am still very far behind in my posts, but I promise that I will catch up. Eventually. But long days and irregular access to the Internet can dissuade even the best of us.

The Village Meeting

This morning started all too early at the rather unfortunate time of 4:45 am. After stumbling down to breakfast, blindly putting on clothes in the dark, and feel our way to the bus, we all head on an hour and a half drive to a nearby village outside of Bangalore. All I know at this point is that the plan is to meet with SKS Microfinance.

 

Surprisingly, I was awake for most of the ride, and it was really interesting passing through other small villages on the way there. Everyone came out of their houses and gawked at the huge bus that was slowly weaving its way along the dirt roads.

Arriving at the village at around 7 am, we look out of the window and see a group of about 50 women, all dressed in brightly colored sarees and barefoot, sitting on the ground in a perfect semi-circle waiting for us. At the mouth of the circle was a row of mats, conveniently placed for our group.

We are ushered over, we take off our shoes, claim a place on the mat, and then we watch as a whole meeting takes place. It was really fascinating, partly because we have no idea what is going on. The meeting starts off with a group chant/prayer and then one by one several different women come up to one of the main men, give him money and then sit back down.

It turns out that all the 50 women belong to one group within the microfinance company. I’ll try and give you a summary of how the process works:

1.       A woman joins a group and then makes a pledge to always be on time to the weekly meetings, to make her payments on time, and to help others if they need it with their loan.

2.        She then applies for a loan and if it is granted, then the husband is also required to be there as insurance.

3.       She then makes her payments over the 50 week period – if she can’t make her full payment one week, the other 49 women will pull their money to help pay for it.

4.       If there is a death in the family, then the rest of the loan is written off.

It really is an interesting system for a number of reasons:

1.       The entire system is built on trust – a strange concept for us cynical, big business Americans.

2.       It’s all dealt with locally, within each individual village, and money transfers out of the village are handled by male staffers (for security reasons).

3.       Only married women are allowed to be a part of this microfinance organization.

a.       More patience

b.      Less irrelevant spending

c.       More focus on family

d.      Smarter (ok I reworded that. I believe her phrase was “less inclined to get involved in risky businesses)

e.      Single women might move villages when she marries which makes loan collection very difficult.

It was just a really cool experience getting to watch the village meeting take place.

Touring the Village

After the meeting concluded, the women started to disperse. However, the majority sort of milled around, clearly fascinated with our group. Looking up, we then noticed that it looked like the entire village had gathered around the outside of the compound, clearly very curious and awed by this large pack of students that just invaded, American-style.

After asking permission the first few times, we begin to take photos of everyone in the village – which they LOVED. They started crowding around, begging for their picture to be taken and then would swarm the camera afterwards to see. I don’t think they had ever seen someone take their picture before. It was quite amazing.

The kids were the cutest. Ever. Cuter than, dare I say it, Boo from Monsters, Inc. If one was having their picture taken, the rest then swarmed the camera. The funny thing is, this experience just reaffirmed my belief that kids are the exact same everywhere, regardless of the culture in which they were raised. It’s kinda cool :).

Look at the kid on the left!

Anyway, it was a really cool experience getting to tour this village. Dirt roads, animals running around…but everyone was super welcoming and excited to show us around. The wealth distribution was also very interesting: there would be a moderately nice house sitting right next to thatched hut. Though I did see one thatched hut that had a Masterlock on it, which made me chuckle.

But definitely, without a doubt, this has been my favorite experience so far. How often do you get to wander around a rural village in India?! Ahhh, amazing.

SKS Microfinance

After we said goodbye to our entourage at the village, we went to one of the local offices of SKS Microfinance, the company that arranged this village meeting. We were put in a small room, covered with mats and were given this strange tea made from milk, which was….interesting? I did have some slight problems during the act of sitting down, as the Indian pants that I was wearing did not stretch. At all. But fortunately, many tries later, I successfully managed sit with the appearance at least of being comfortable.

It was really quite interesting learned about SKS Microfinance, which surprisingly is quite a large company, much bigger and more widespread than I expected. They had over 2,600 branches in India and 7.2 million members who have outstanding loans. Initially a NGO, they just recently became a Non-Banking Financing Group (NBFG), and in fact just went public about three days ago. Don’t know what that means? That’s ok, I won’t judge you. Basically, it means that as a company, they no longer have to rely on grants but instead can now receive funding from large investors (and in fact received quite an amazing response).

Here are some cool facts I learned:

·         28% of the population is below the poverty line

·         The poverty line is 300 rupees a month or about $7 (the price of a moderate meal at a moderate restaurant)

·         The majority of the loans granted go to the purchase of a cow ($1,100) since it’s the best investment

·         Most women stick with the company for about 3 years (at a 50 week loan period) in order to break even

·         The repayment rate for the loans granted is 99.2%, which is amazing.

We also got the chance to go visit some of the stores that were financed through a loan from SKS Microfinance. All in all, a very cool experience.

Saatchi and Saatchi Advertising

Surprisingly enough, after all that happened this morning, it was only 11 am. It felt like an entire day had gone by. After lunch, we then go and visit Saatchi and Saatchi Advertising, which is (yepp, you guessed it) an advertising company. What gave it away?

This was a very cool meeting as well, as the lady who gave us the presentation was very entertaining and knew how to work with young people. She filled the presentation with lots of visual examples of how advertising in India worked and it was very cool getting to watch different ads.

The most interesting thing to me that I learned from this visit was that Indians really prefer direct, bright, in-the-face advertising.  With famous endorsers, of course. If a famous cricketer says that Appy apple juice is his drink of choice, then clearly it’s the best product available. Though, when you think about it, this type of advertising does make a lot of sense with regards to their culture. Indians love bright colors and loud music. And why glance discretely out of the corner of your eye when outright staring would suffice? It’s not a culture based around the concept of subtley.

After the presentation, we had the opportunity to tour the office with one of the young employees or interns as our guide. Honestly, it was one of the coolest offices I’ve seen. All the walls were covered with bright movie posters, color coded by section. Loud upbeat music was playing. And my personal favorite? The dartboard and punching bag for when they have to deal with a really difficult client. (Hear that Mom? Might be the perfect idea for your classroom).

Also of note, today was also the first day that I noticed the infamous Indian head bob. You know, the bobbing of the head from side to side? Our guide kept doing it the entire time we were talking and while she didn’t notice, my neck muscles ached in sympathy. I feel like doing that constantly would rattle my brain completely, and lord knows we don’t need any more of that.

Big Bazaar

The final visit of the day was to Big Bazaar, the discount department store that was located right next to our hotel. I tell you what, the security that is so pervasive around India is rather off-putting. Any major electronics that you were carrying had to be recorded before entering Big Bazaar, bags had to be searched, and we had to go through a metal detector. After checking out, all bags were sealed with plastic bag ties, the receipt was marked with the number of bags you had, and the security guard punched holes in your receipt as you left. Kinda intense, no? (Still doesn’t quite compare to the hotels using mirrors to check under every car for bombs)

But anyway, tangent aside, the presentation was about how this Indian equivalent of Super Target did business in India. It was moderately interesting. OK not really. But here are the highlights:

·         All the girls were wearing their ethnic wear…which they purchased from Big Bazaar the day before.

·         Big Bazaar said they weren’t too worried about the possibility that Walmart might open up in India and compete with them. Ohhh poor Big Bazaar. You have no idea, do you?

I’m sure there was more but I was too distracted by the super cheap haircuts they were offering at their salon. Only $4?! Sooo tempted…

I also happened to catch a glimpse of one of the employee requirements list. On it, it stated that men needed to wax their hands and women couldn’t wear bindis. Interesting.

Out and About

That night, taking the advice of Jay, the hotel’s bartender, we decided to hit up Club Hint. It was actually pretty fun, despite the fact that it was a little expensive. The music was a mix of American hits from a couple years ago and Bollywood music, but the most interesting (I’ve gotta stop using this word) part was the fact that everyone was dressed pretty modern and dancing but no one actually touched one another. Kinda cool.

But the club did close at 11:30 (Lame) and so we all had to pile into rickshaws on our way back to the hotel. Lindsey, on the way back, asked the rickshaw driver if she could drive, and without the slightest hesitation, the driver handed over the rickshaw to her. Didn’t even blink an eye. Meanwhile, I am fervently try to signal that no, maybe we shouldn’t trust a young, slightly intoxicated American girl with a strange vehicle in a foreign country that drives on the wrong side of the road and no one follows the traffic laws. Just a thought.

Luckily, we make it back alive and in one piece, more or less, and the rest of the evening was spent debating hash browns and providing the hotel staff with dinner and a show.

That concludes our day’s many adventures. The adventures only continue tomorrow, so stay tuned!

No Internet...

Hey everyone!

I'm so sorry that I've been off the charts for the last three or so days. Unfortunately, once getting to Delhi, I haven't had any access to Internet. I'm currently stealing it from someone else right now, so I can't post all the posts that I've written.

Good news is that I am alive and I have all my kidneys (Thanks Martha!). Bad news is that I can't actually post the recent updates until tomorrow or so. Please bear with me. I understand that you all must be completely traumatized without your daily dose of Ellen.

As an incentive to keep you guys still with me, let me just give a quick summary of what I've done:

• Played with village children
• Got stuck in an elevator
• Had dinner with a local family
• Been chased by beggars
• Wandered around the Taj Mahal
• Was flocked by men trying to take pictures of me... (strange)
• Purchased not one, but TWO pairs of Poofy Pants :D

I'm really sorry to cause some of you worry, though the messages I received inquiring as to whether I was still alive were very touching :)

Hopefully I'll be able to actually post my posts soon! 

--Ellen