Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Indian Frat Stars, the Five Gardens of Eden, The Deadhead’s Wisdom and When Rules Actually Matter


Me and The Most Unlikely Group of Frat Stars

I. Indian Frat Stars

            Last Sunday the residents of the second floor of my hostel were supposed to take a day trip to Sanjay Gandhi National Park, a national park just north of the Mumbai City Limits. We had managed to corral a group together and drum up excitement about exploring the park’s caves and seeing its lions and panthers. The seniors (second-year students) in our hostel had other ideas. Saturday night was hostel induction night for the junior residents. 

            My friends are juniors and were excited about the induction ceremony. They scampered around the hostel like high-schoolers before homecoming taking pictures in their blazers and shorts, the uniform of the ceremony. They repeatedly asked my roommate Peter and I to take pictures and videos of the ceremony.
          I was very surprised my friends were so excited for the ceremony. Many have worked for a year or two. Some are in their mid-20's. They have every right and reason to resist being told what to do after being members of the workforce and earning salaries. But instead of viewing the ceremony as an emasculating procedure, they viewed as a milestone in their MBA experience.
         “We need to have pictures and videos. These are important moments of our life,” a friend told me.
           
Wannabe Frat Stars
            Around 11:00 my friends shuffled up to a room on the top floor of our hostel. They joined 20 other juniors who were packed like sardines in a two-person dorm room. Through the mist of cigarette smoke and in between swigs of beer, the seniors interrogated the juniors about their sex lives, forced them to answer questions while bending over at 90 degree angles and had them address them as “Sir”, a title usually reserved for professors, until 4 a.m.
In The Line of Fire
            The next morning my hostel mates said how the seniors were such assholes for calling them names like “chicken legs” and making them stay up all night in a room with a pungent aroma of sweat, alcohol and cigarettes.  If only they knew what the aspiring fraternity men at Boston University’s AEPi, Dartmouth’s Sigma Alpha Epsilon and Ohio University’s Delta Tau Delta went through during pledging.

II The Five Gardens of Eden

            Last week I stumbled upon the Five Gardens, a series of parks in the Dadar neighborhood of Mumbai. On the weekends droves of Mumbaikars head out to the Gardens’ cricket fields, playgrounds and park benches to play cards and catch up with friends.
            I took a break from my run and watched a group of teenagers play cricket from the top of a jungle gym. Yes I know it, it’s a bit creepy but I’m a foreigner so I can bend the rules.  
            When I was sitting on top of another jungle gym, a 14-year old boy named “Abhishek”, I forgot his name, came over. Moments earlier, he was napping on the ground, undisturbed by a soccer ball whizzing inches above his face. His lethargy was a result of fasting for Ramadan. 
            Abhishek’s friends were delighted to meet a foreigner. I don’t think they had met someone from outside India before. They were eager to catch a glimpse of American money and wanted to know my phone number to invite me back to the park the following week.
            Meeting someone like Abhishek is a foreigner’s dream. Him and his friends are a direct line into the thoughts of Indians with little knowledge and experience with the West. But part of me could not resist viewing Abhishek with suspicion. Did Abhishek really want to get to know me or did he and his friends see me as an easy way to get some extra cash? Why else would he ask to see American currency twice within the half hour period of our conversation?
            I probably over reacted. After talking with me, Abhishek probably went home and bragged to his friends and parents how he held a conversation in English with the random American in the playground.  Not curse himself for missing out on a chance to make some easy money. I’m the one to blame here for letting the horror stories of India’s poverty perpetuated by ignorant peers and fear of the unknown color my thoughts of an unassuming teenager. 
           


 III The Deadhead’s Wisdom
           

            Many students probably embark on their study abroad trips hoping to integrate into the culture of their chosen country. To an extent students do. They learn local slang, pick up some of the language, develop a taste for the local food, even conquer navigating the public transit.  But do they ever become a full blown members of their adopted cultures? Most do not come even close.
            The Deadhead spent a good chunk of our Monday lecture explaining the importance of adapting and respecting cultural barriers in an international business setting. He regaled us with stories of how chewing khat and wearing a sword helped him seal a business deal on a business trip in Yemen. He even used me to illustrate the differences between American and Indian culture.

            The Deadhead: “Gabriel, pretend you have just been promoted to manager of a             unit we’ll call Unit A. The old boss of Unit A is now in charge of Unit B. How             would you feel if the head of Unit B came and give you unsolicited advice on how             to run Unit A?
           
            Gabe: “I’d feel like he was encroaching on my territory.”

            The Deadhead: “Did you hear what language he used? Encroached has a very             negative connotation. He’s upset. What would we do? We’d be running off to the             boss asking for help and advice. ‘Please sir, help us sir. How did you run this             operation?’ That my friends is culture.”
           

            The Deadhead used the remainder of the lesson to give his anthropological assessment of Indian culture. According to the Deadhead, India, a land of Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Parsis, Jews and Jains, is one of the more racist countries in the world.
            “Here we discriminate based on race, sex, class, religion and caste,” he said. “There are certain things I admire about the West. I admire the sense of independence fostered in the United States. In the USA, most MBA students take out loans to pay for their education. Here, mom and dad pay for the MBA, or they might take out loans for their children’s MBA. ”
           
            But the most important thing the Deadhead stressed is to adopt the best elements of different cultures to form your own unique set of values.
            “I admire the German’s work ethic. But my German friends tell me how they set up times to meet their parents. I could never say ‘Ok Mom, I’ll meet you at 4.’ Can you imagine doing that here? The key is to pick the best of both cultures and to realize that as a foreigner you will never adopt another culture, but adopt certain elements.”

IV When Rules Actually Matter

Its totally cool to catch some z's in the middle of the sidewalk but apparently not to play badminton in a public park
            If you want to survive in Mumbai, you’re expected to break rules. No one bats an eye when a driver runs a red light. Slipping a few thousand rupees to a government official so your passport will be processed sooner is no big deal. Show up to the school workout facility in dress clothes when it clearly states you need to be wearing workout apparel? Come on in!
            But try and play badminton in a public park (a safe distance away from other patrons) or swing on a children’s swing set when no one else is using the swings? Unthinkable! The park guards will blow their whistles at you and start yelling at you in Hindi. TII (This Is India.) 

A Pair of Cows Hanging out in the midst of urban Mumbai





Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Managing the Mayhem, the Deadhead Professor and Upscale Malls


An Intimate Moment Before the Monsoon Rains

I.
            To the non-native eye, Mumbai is a cauldron of chaos. The first sign of mayhem is the traffic. It slogs along during rush hour, a shrieking chorus of honking taxis, motorcycles and trucks. Sitting in traffic for an hour and a half during rush hour is normal. Crossing the street is like playing Frogger. You weave between stopped traffic and hop in front of cars sprinting through red lights.
            The second mark is the scent of trash. Neighborhoods greet visitors with heaps of trash and an aroma that smells like a sewage curry. Flies linger on the peppers and bananas of street vendors, while stray dogs takie a siesta from patrolling the neighborhood.

Snoozing in front of the Dadar train station ticket counter.
            On Sunday, I headed to park with two friends to play soccer with a larger group. Being a naïve American, I expected to play on a well-manicured pitch, with emerald grass, and enough space to accommodate several games. But the chaos from the streets spilled over to the park. We shared the rust colored muck with at least 300 weekend warriors. Cricket and soccer balls routinely whizzed onto our field. Players from different cricket games calmly waited to field our ball, unfazed by a charging midfielder or striker from our soccer game. I had trouble challenging players from the other teams. I was too busy digesting the crush of bodies, the competing thuds of the cricket and soccer balls and avoiding falling into a pile of mud the color of manure. (A note: We agreed to never play soccer at this field again.  Everyone agreed it was too difficult to play in such a crowded area.)
          
Piling onto the Local Train

           The constant symphony of chatter, traffic and the seemingly interminable flow of men huddled around the cigarette counter at the corner store is overwhelming to digest for anyone not from Mumbai. But after a while you learn how to live here. You learn to wait patiently during the two-hour traffic jam. You start cheering on your taxi drive to honk louder during a traffic jam so he’ll blow through the choking traffic. Slowly what was once foreign, bizarre and shocking becomes banal and routine. You learn to manage the mayhem.
           
            II.
            I finally started class on Saturday. After a week of wading through the swamps of Indian government bureaucracy, I was ready to get back into the classroom. My economics professor, who showed up 30 minutes and which is apparently normal, spent a bulk of the session lecturing about the history of India and explaining why he believed the United States has developed at a faster pace than India.            
            The college where I am studying, Welingkar Institute of Management Development and Research, is pretty formal. Men must wear a button down shirt and slacks to class and women must wear either pants, a skirt or traditional Indian clothing appropriate for a business setting. On Monday, I noticed a man with a long ponytail,  wayfarer sunglasses, beat up Wranglers, flip flops and an un-tucked button down shirt walking around the college. He looked like he belonged at a Grateful Dead reunion show. An hour later, sixty students popped up when the ex-Dead Head, who I later learned is one of the most beloved faculty members at Welingkar, walked into my international business class. For the next three hours, the students chuckled at his jokes and listened to every word of his commentary. He didn’t mind saying “fuck”, “shit”, making sexual innuendos and checking his cell phone. It was one of the more entertaining lectures I’ve ever attended.
            III.
             The filth, traffic and poverty is only part of a much larger narrative. I spent yesterday around the swankier parts of Mumbai, where real estate prices are in the millions, Merecedes and BMWs roam, with Jonas, an exchange student from Denmark, Peter, the other participant from my American study abroad program and Smriti, our adviser. We visited the house Gandhi lived in Mumbai, checked out Mumbai’s marquis tourist attractions, the Gateway of India and the Victoria Terminus. We stopped by Leopold’s Café, one of the sights of the 2008 terrorist attacks. The bullet holes from the attacks were left untouched and are very easy to sight.
Victoria Terminus
           
           
The Owners of Leopold's Cafe weren't fans of Bill Clinton

            We ended our day at Phoenix Mall, an upscale shopping center. Phoenix Mall is easily the nicest shopping center I have ever seen. With upscale stores like Gucci,  Chanel, Diesel, and Hugo Boss and American chains California Pizza Kitchen, McDonald’s and Staples, you feel like you’re in New York, London or Cleveland(my hometown pride showing). People watching is interesting at Phoenix. Many young women walk around in skirts, shorts and tighter pants, things you don’ usually see walking around Mumbai. I don’t remember seeing too many saris or kurtas. But you abruptly re-enter India when you exit the mall and start haggling with taxi drivers.

Phoenix Mall 


   
           


Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Arrival in India


             
Cool Truck Art Spotted in A Traffic Jam




           Before I talk about my experience so far here in Mumbai, I want to let my fretting family home in Cleveland know that I am alive and well.
·      Mom: You’ll be happy to know I am diligently taking my malaria medicine. I carried around a roll of the toilet paper we bought at Dick’s when I roamed around the neighborhood on Sunday in fear of a sanitation emergency.
·      Dad: The adapters are working great, I have enough currency and I saw PWC’s office while we were driving around South Mumbai this afternoon.
·      Anna: Thanks for the emails. I can already tell you’ll be a great Jewish mother. I walked around a movie theater tonight looking for some talent for ICM.
·      Jonah: You’ll be a seasoned pro by the time you’re done paddling the lakes of Algonquin this summer. Screw your finals and come be my tripper so we can go backpacking in the Himalayas in the late fall.
Thanks for all of your help in preparing for the trip. Most importantly, thanks for all of your love.

            The past few days have been all about adjustments: physical, logistical, and emotional. I still haven’t slept through the night. Luckily my stomach has so far held up. Things I did not expect to be shocking; swarms of flies hovering around trash, stray dogs, rows of dilapidated buildings, apparently take some getting used to even if you’ve already been to India. 
            One pleasant surprise has been the neighborhood where my dormitory is. It is not the swankiest part of the city, but it is relatively quiet (its 12:41 a.m. here and I can still here horns blaring on the main road) and easy to go about one’s business.
            I’m excited to start classes on Thursday and begin settling into a routine. I’ve signed up for Accounting, MIS, Managerial Economics, Corporate Finance International Trade and Hindi. It’ll be nice to start interacting with a lot of people and get back to the classroom.
            The past few days have been busy taking care of bureaucracy like registering at the police station (apparently its really important the Mumbai police know my home address in the U.S.A. and the first names of my parents) and picking classes.
            A note about the name of my blog. Hindustan, is one of the many names people use to call India. Hindustan translates to land of the Hindus and comes from the Sanskrit word Sindhu. Persian explorers  incorrectly pronounced “Sindhu”  as “Hindu” and the name has stuck. Historically, Hindustan encompassed Northern India. Other names for India include Bharat.
            Tomorrow, we have to take care of a final bureaucratic procedure and then will do some sight seeing. More to follow.
            Take care and be well.
-Gabe