October 6, 2005
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I have been coming to India since November 1997. My first trip happened in my first week at a new company. Tess was between jobs and came with me. I was in Delhi for a week, Tess stayed with me, and then she went off to explore for another week while I returned to Hong Kong. This week I am travelling with my boss who spent two months in Delhi back in 1992.
India has changed a lot during the last eight years. Changes tend to happen quickly, too. After the government approved highway and road enhancements in Delhi several years ago, within a month construction began, progressing steadily to complete the project in a relatively short amount of time. Likewise, while Delhi used to be generally a very dirty city, in many areas (probably a very small proportion) big efforts have been made to make the city look better. Each time I return to a major India city, there are new buildings, improved roads, more trees and plants. Eight years ago old Indian Ambassador cars rambled down pot-holed streets. Eventually as affluence spread, more and more modern cars appeared like Hondas and Toyotas. Drivers are still crazy, though, often driving in oncoming lanes until the threat of dangerous collisions force them back onto their proper side. To avoid these inevitable mishaps more and more divides have appeared to separate opposing traffic. Yes, lots of change and generally a better looking life… for some.
India in many ways has also NOT changed and each time I visit, it’s a bit of a crap shoot what I’ll encounter. I am pretty lucky for the most part, typically having smooth sailing. But there is still a glaring desparity between those who have and those who have not. Bangalore is generally cleaner and efforts have been made to clean-up parts of other major cities but what hasn’t been cleaned up is a mess. I remember right before my first trip to India a colleague said, "if China is dirty, India is filthy." In many ways that still holds true plus poverty seems to be everywhere. The poverty is so IN YOUR FACE that some people, unsure of their abilities to cope with such frailties of life, have told me they’ll never go to India as a result.
In reality, poverty is not everywhere. Without a doubt Bangalore is the Silicon Valley of India and perhaps even Asia. The city is known for its highly skillled and motivated workforce who speak excellent English. India managers are also known to be excellent business professionals. Looking around the world you’ll find numerous ethnic Indians in very senior positions who started out in India. The business landscape is mixed with old and new mindsets. Often the paradox of progress pitched old mindsets hampers life going forward at the same speed as it does, for example, in China.
Take for instance one of the new aforementioned Delhi highways. The first time I travelled that highway… wow! By modern standards it was state of the art. I remember speeding down the highway, nervously sitting in the backseat because my car had no seatbelts, and feeling as if I was on a brand new piece of Highway 407 in Toronto. It looked the same, felt the same, flashed by the same. Amazing considering only minutes earlier I was driving down another major Delhi street that resembled a horrible slum!
The opening of this particular highway was atypical for old India. The first day everyone wanted to try it. Traffic was backed up a long way… rush hour in Delhi… just like Toronto! One truck driver sat in his big Indian truck, an official contributor to the Delhi Pollution Index, surveying the situation. The direction he wanted to travel was plugged solid. This would take him hours to get through. The other direction was deserted… no traffic at all!
I can just imagine what it was like that bright sunny morning atop the modern bridge stretching across the spanking new highway. As the truck driver jammed his truck into reverse black smoked probably billowed from the exhaust. Then he would back up to another ramp sporting an international "Do Not Enter" sign. Chug, chug, chug and more smoke as the truck’s gears noisily ground the beast forward, down the ramp, onto the empty highway… full speed ahead.
Do you think onlookers across the other side of the median, sitting in their traffic jam in the early morning heat, would have realised how perilous a situation the driver had placed himself and possibly others into? Or, would they have wished they were right behind him, driving the wrong way down the new highway of progress?
I am sure both mindsets prevailed when people first saw the speeding vehicle on the deserted highway but this is a peaceful, loving country – okay ignore Kashmir for the moment – who care deeply for the well-being of their fellow human beings. Therefore, no one would have liked what they saw when the truck turned the slight bend in the highway, slammed head-on into a modern Toyota or Honda, and instantly killed the mother, three young children and baby inside. Kid you not. True story.
In a panic the truck driver hopped over the guardrail and across a field… never to be found. His company, with hundreds of trucks and drivers, had no manifest of who was in what truck that day or any day for that matter! Management of the local transport company passively and bureaucratically resisted police long enough that the driver’s identity was never revealed. To give them the benefit of the doubt, maybe management never knew.
As much as I love India – and believe me I really love this country – the strange mindsets I often encounter, like the truck driver, are rich with peculiarities. This week we had endless problems with our flights. Resolving them tested everyone’s patience and emotions. At times we felt like the truck driver, innocently turning the bend only to find new collisions ahead of us. At times my boss felt that little had changed even though he knew that much had changed.
Alas, I have faith in India. This is a great country and worth visiting. That’s why I keep coming back, keep fighting for them in the corporate world, keep helping them find their way on the highway of progress.
