Higher Education

"There is a humor," he says.

The round little professor had been patiently waiting for us when we breathlessly arrived from our harried journey across Delhi.  After being stuck in meetings in Noida, we had all but given up on making our four o'clock meeting, until he let us know he would be available until five.  We slung our laptop bags over our shoulders and hit the road, stewing in traffic until we reached his campus and were able to climb the three flights of stairs to his office.

He takes a moment to fish out his card, then sits back in his chair and says simply, "Tell." We discuss the new sales curriculum he's been developing, a chance for me to see how universities work from the inside out.  It's not until we're standing up to leave that he finally turns to me and asks, "You are from what office?"

When he learns I'm based in Boston, he smiles and says, "There is a humor..."

He goes on to tell a classic Harvard vs. MIT joke (although instead of MIT, he calls it "Massachusetts"): It seems that one of them is qualitative, one of them is quantitative.  A professor walks up to the 10-items-or-less aisle at a supermarket. The cashier asks, "Are you from Harvard or MIT?"  When the professor doesn't understand, she explains, "Are you from the school who can't read, or the school who can't see?"

 ----

On our way out of the meeting, my coworker makes a hurried detour to the elementary school next door to campus.  I'm unsure why, until I notice a small list posted on a stand just outside the front gate.  It's a list of students to be admitted to its preschool the following year.

We scan the paper together until I notice his last name.  "Your daughter?" I ask.  He grins mightily.

"Proud papa," I say.  "Yes," he agrees.  "Proud papa."

Some things are the same no matter where you go.

Development, Editing

On my drive from Noida to Gurgoan, I looked out the window and saw a beautiful concrete amphitheater with a statue placed in the center, still under its plastic tarp.  It seems like the entire city is under construction, from the Delhi Metro to the Commonwealth Games stadia.

Noida, where I work every day, has been compared to Canary Wharf circa several years ago.  Big, beautiful buildings are surrounded by muddy fields and construction sites.  The college next door from my office still has steel girders protruding from the roof, and I once looked out the window to see cows lolling in the adjacent empty lot.

Just think of what Canary Wharf looks like now.  That's the idea behind all of this development.  Shiny malls have sprung up on both sides of all major arteries, and more are on their way.  The landscape is daunting, but it's exciting too.  There are so many people here; there is so much potential.  Everywhere you look is evidence of work being done.

I felt the same way finishing my presentation and heading onto the highway for my first Indian sales call.  Through this trip I've gotten the opportunity to try all sorts of things I wouldn't have been able to back home.  I've been hooked onto a division just finding its legs--how rare that in a big company like ours that one would have the opportunity to plant the seed for something new.  A difficult author will seem like nothing compared to the challenges we face here.

It's a chance for personal development as well.  When I arrived, I was nervous to even explore my neighborhood.  Now I'm hailing "took-tooks" without a second thought, directing them all the way home.  I'm interested to see what I'm going to look like at the end of this journey--just like I'm interested to see what's beneath the tarpulin and what's being made of the ground.

Camelback

Oh my.  What a day.  I have certainly learned a lot -  not the least of which is the amount of work there is to do.

While I try to make sense of everything, please do content yourselves with the following video blog recorded from the back of a camel:

You Asked For It

One of the disadvantages of this assignment has been a slight ambiguity in the objectives I'm here to accomplish.  The educational group is starting a new custom publishing division, which dovetails nicely with what I do back home, but we've been floundering a bit in identifiying specific ways that I can contribute to the team.  One of the reasons for this is because their custom books are going to be almost entirely produced for the open market, not presold as ours are.  This means that we need to extend a million feelers for custom opportunities, but most of them will never materialize.  The publisher had refrained from assigning me any projects until one was solid enough to actually receive funding.

Last Thursday, the afternoon preceding a long holiday weekend, the CEO had me into his office for a chat to discuss my progress so far.  When I gave him a report on my current activities, he spent a moment in thought and then asked if there was anything further I'd like to do.  When I suggested that, yes, perhaps I could be more useful in helping to classify potential projects and how to complete them most efficiently, he nodded.  He suggested I make sales calls with the custom editors to understand what their approach was, and how it differed from the market back home.  He expressed interest in attending the presentation I had been preparing to explain our U.S. custom processes and procedures.

We have a saying in America that, "The squeaky wheel gets the grease."  The Indian equivalent is another traffic metaphor: They only see you if you honk.  As the CEO explained, things will probably not progress until I take the initiative to identify specific tasks I could be performing.  No one will know that I might be helpful checking manuscripts until I offer.  So, this morning, I went in to see my publisher, and I offered.

Immediately, my presentation was scheduled for the following day at 9:30 am, which because of traffic means I should leave my home an hour earlier than usual.  I had been working all weekend on my speech, so luckily I felt prepared enough to agree.

Before I had finished stapling my info packets, a custom editor dropped by my desk and arranged for me to join him right after my presentation on three institutional sales calls in Gurgoan, two hours away.  Essentially, I would take my bow, throw on my suitcoat, and hit the road to make only the second sales call in my career, and my first in India.

Don't you want me to prepare a bit first? I asked.

Nope--since I won't be doing any of the talking, I can just sit back, watch, and learn.

Isn't this being planned a little... quickly?

That's just the pace of business, though.  As the editor reminded me, it's probably best not to miss the opportunity.  Americans might move a bit more slowly, but we're in India now.  So I have two major events on the books tomorrow, and let's hope that I can hold it together through them both.  Learning experience, indeed.

Respect the Rickshaw

Forget land wars in Asia -- some blunders are even more classic.  Especially when it comes to dealing with rickshaw-wallahs in Delhi.

After working all afternoon, I needed to find something culturally instructive to do with my Sunday early-evening.  I had heard lovely things about the Lotus Temple at dusk, and I knew it wasn't far away, so I set out on a brief trip.

The rickshaw-wallah waiting at the end of the road gave me the boilerplate 100-rupee offer, which seems to be standard for everywhere in Delhi if you're blonde and asking nicely.  Sixty, I countered, although the gentleman was difficult to budge.  There's always this pantomime you have to go through when bartering - you'll say, "Sixty", and they'll say, "Yes, as you like, eighty, please, get in the cab."  You're usually not getting the price you're insisting on until you hear them repeat it back to you.  Sixty, I said.  Sixty. Sixty. Sixty. FINE.  SEVENTY.

He repeated SEVENTY in exasperation, so I hopped in. 

He stopped for a second to chat with another rickshaw-wallah and tell a few jokes.  They spoke Hindi, so all I could make out was, "Lotus temple", and "seventy", and laughter.  I thought nothing of it, though I knew I had committed classic blunder #1: probably overpaying for a rickshaw ride.  It wasn't worth arguing over ten rupees, though, so I figured I would let it go. We motored off to the Baha'i Temple in South Delhi.  

It's often compared to the Sydney Opera house for its architecture -- white 'leaves' envelope together to form a lotus-shaped dome.  Lights illuminate the bright white exterior at night.  We approached from the South while the Temple stood out majestically against the fading Delhi evening.

The rickshaw-wallah was a nice guy, asking the standard questions most tourists have heard a thousand times.  Which country? Do you like India? What do you do?  Before we were halfway there, the driver asked, "Do you want return?"  I have never had a rickshaw-wallah actually wait for me on a pickup - that's normally only done by taxi-drivers, with actual cars, and because you've arranged payment in advance.  I turned him down, so he shrugged and kept driving.

The drive ended up being longer than I thought--definitely a seventy-rupee ride, not sixty. I hadn't overpaid after all. I hopped out at the temple entrance, then took my gamble.  

"Change?" I asked, handing the rickshaw-wallah a 100-rupee note.  

"Twenty rupees," he responded, handing me that amount.  "Good price."  I knew better than to argue.  I had committed classic blunder #2: expecting to get change. Silly Yankee! I just laughed and shook my finger at him.  "Very sneaky," I scolded jokingly.  "You're very sneaky." And off to the temple.

Which, by the way, is classic blunder #3.  The Lotus Temple is closed on Sunday.

I hung out by the gate and got a few gorgeous photos of the outside, but resigned myself to see the interior another day.  When I turned around to find myself a ride home, there was the rickshaw-wallah grinning like an idiot.

"OK, want return now?"

"Closed!" I said, throwing up my hands.  "You're very sneaky!"

He laughed.  "Yes, closed on Sundays."

"Now you have to take me home for sixty," I said.

He laughed and repeated, "Sixty," and gestured for me to get in.

I made to slide in the door, then I stopped and put my hands on my hips.  "Will you have change for sixty?"

He cracked up, which I took as a yes, and he motored me home.  We went through the back roads this time so that I could get a good view of South Delhi gardens, markets, and temples.  For my trouble, he gave me what amounted to a guided mini-tour.  He dropped me right where he had found me and gave me exactly the change I was due, with an eyebrow wiggle to let me know that he wasn't really obliged.  I was a good sport; he was a good sport.  In all, the adventure only cost me about $2, and I could chalk it up to a good lesson in Delhi tourism.

Presented here without any context whatsoever...

... a dance off!

Recent Observations Lately Made Which Cause Me To Worry About My Return to America

- When getting into a cab, I decide in advance how much I'm going to pay.  At my destination, that's exactly what I spend.  Correction: When getting into a cab, the driver tells me how much I'm going to pay, then I tell the driver he's wrong, then I give him a figure less than half than what he's quoted me and that's how much I'm going to pay.

- I don't believe that cars in the street even exist until they honk.

- Today, my driver headed directly into oncoming traffic.  We faced down a slightly bigger Tata, but because there was a cycle rickshaw next to us we were able to complete our turn.  I turned to the American sitting next to me and said, "You know? Just now, that made perfect sense."