As the sun sets tonight the Singapore Airlines flight would ascend its way into the horizon. This would be the second time I would be flying out of India. India is plural in many ways – religion, culture, language, traditions, myths, mythologies, etc., yet it has been able to maintain an order of singularity among them amidst commotion and disturbance relating to communal disorder.

It has been a profound experience in many ways. Right from the soaring heights of Bangalore tigers to the explicit display of greenery in Tamil Nadu, this Indian trip has certainly highlighted the multi dimension of the peninsula. With an annual GDP growth rate of 9.2%, India has been soaring to developmental action for sometime now. Yet again it provokes the sense that growth is a comparative term in many ways, considering what we can pronounce and relate as growth.

Purely from an Indian who has lived abroad for about 20 months now (and happy to be pronounced with the birth country’s nationality), I take the opportunity to compare the contrasting differences with my adopted educational land and the birth land.

Times of India – India’s leading daily newspaper came out with an article the very day I arrived about the indifferences in the salary quotes by companies in the IT sector, and how the common man is being given an impression leading to a causeway-thinking. The article went on to say that only the top 1-3% of the employees receives the staggering salary with the total digits in the pay slips extending to the next line. Yet there are about 97% of the employees on the lesser side, not being able to utilize this as an opportunity.

When I was in a deep conversation with my uncle is when I was told between the differences in the mindsets of the companies (especially in IT and ITES sectors), relating to the way India is being viewed. The MNC’s which bring jobs in abundance to the country are merely utilizing the place for its labor arbitrage thus calculating everything as “cost-reduction” compared to “profit/revenue generation” used by the Indian companies on comparison. This would obviously have an impact on the way the business practices are being conducted in the homeland and the way the business model impacts the basis of conducting business purely from a mindset differential.

The major glaring difference that I see in the country is it adaptiveness to sectoral change. My meaning here being the acceptance and dominance of wealth spending (generating) businesses like Malls as opposed to an increased supply of quality roads or regulation, thus proving that it’s not about the necessity of wealth rather the allocation of wealth. The only time I went to Commercial Street I could see an image which was in comparison to Oceans Thirteen the movie - when Ocean’s team tricked/helped people (gamblers)into winning loads of money in Pacino’s Casino and the display of how much have they won in a glimpse of dollars on top of their heads. A similar experience or vision was felt through my eyes with regards to the money that is available in the financial system. The question here being the distinction between generated wealth and maintained wealth.

Talking about money and wealth, I see no increase in the “real” wealth of a common man rather what’s being in display is the power of what’s called economically inflation. The reserve bank in co-ordination with the Finance Ministry has provided able support in just increasing the Interest Rates thus making people like me to repay more post-MBA (indirectly reducing my Disposable Income in Dollar amounts), and in no way tried to increase the Supply to make sure the prices are held at nominal rates. This I think is the decision made by the Congressmen to win the elections – which is a short-term solution as against the long term solution discussed above (regardless monetary policy according to me in a short term solution).

Now with the US dollar surging downwards and the Indian companies not really defining an edge with the arbitrage business practice/model, the so called India Calling sign board have to shift their marketing communication from low-cost to high-skill. This would have its own effect in many companies not declaring roaring profits, thus making the Dallal Street to go a bit silent past the great 15000 mark which the pundits predict with some strange incurrence has a near perfect correlation to Sachin Tendulkar’s batting record.

Talking beyond the business, in Chennai an auto driver taught me why India wouldn’t sustain its economic boom on the longer run in what I call the “autonomics” with the word “auto” in capital. His theory goes on to explain that in India in a four road junction the drivers would normally collide with each other without giving any way for the rightful vehicle to go first as opposed to a foreign country which would practice a more regulated approach. May be this is what is termed as “frog-in-a-well-thinking”. At the end of our conversation he even asked me if I want any chicks for the night, since he also has some side business pimping. I was tempted to ask him if driving an auto was his side business or the other way?!

The visit to my family-god’s temple in Sirkayi (a town 4hrs from Tanjore) not only opened my eyes to keep coming back again, but also in realizing the power of money (read bribe) which was demanded right from the night-watchman till the guy who distributed tickets to get in. It also made me realize that there is no point in coming back to this country unless I have the requisite wealth to live a serene life – even though real Wealth is immeasurable.

I always wondered why they placed First Class AC compartments near the unreserved ones at the end of the train. One logical solution could have been that generally there are not many people who travel the high end class, and would therefore be placed in the end to avoid passengers (obviously stray) to pass through. But never did they think about the glaring differences it would make between the have’s and the have not’s. This display of inequality (not this in particular) is thus been criticized immensely by critiques. When I say this I also mean the high raised buildings next to slums, which automatically invade unnecessary analysis.

My visit to the Forum – one of the biggest malls in Bangalore located strategically in Koramangala which is the Silicon Valley of Bangalore, revealed almost all answer I was in search off. The answers to deprived luxuries extending to a level where Forum almost runs only on discount tags and retail therapy surrounding extensive marketing activity, excepting movie screens – if only window shopping would be counted in the Asset column in the Balance Sheet under the heading “Goodwill”. This is just not the case with Forum, but also with other super malls located around the city.

The argument of inequality and incentives have generated many audience, among whom I was one, yet when it comes to the disparities of wealth I myself am caught up on occasions thinking and pronouncing vocabulary as a common man. The last few words of the previous sentence says a lot since all of us associate ourselves with it, yet many of us forget to stand up for it in many ways. I am not being a leftist here rather just being rational in exploring the real senses behind the wishful thinking.

Despite these tentacles the greatest boon for me in this trip is my ability to read voraciously on many topics I regard are important for understanding my roots and the way we Indians think. Holidays are often a form of stimuli to do more work, infact the best definition of holiday goes something like “The amount of time spent on a holiday is directly proportional to ten times the time spent on earning that income”. In my instance it is very true and my concept of why people need to take a holiday with surging opportunity cost is reshaping my perceptions towards the same. There could always be another blogspot explaining the idiosyncrasies of holidays.

As far as a holiday in India goes, where my family lives, it’s a matter of combustion of pockets more than anything. If the sole purpose of the holiday is to spend some time with your family, then the very purpose of holiday itself is lost in today’s India with people spending their whole time at work. This again takes us back into the next discussion of balance in workforces.

It took me almost four working days and twenty seven phone calls to reach my dearest cousin who prides of working for a top global consulting firm. This I would call as an obtrusive dissimilarity between the two nations, where balance is reinforced to the very last word. But more often than not it’s over stated is my impression. Nevertheless, it’s stated is my conclusion.

Even though a liter of petrol costs two rupees less than what it used to when I left, the pleasure of driving or riding on Bangalore roads has taken a back seat due to the incisive surge of vehicles and downward gush of the quality of the roads. I am not wondered by the lack of quality roads, rather interested by the mixture of conditions between roads of two comparative streets in the very locality. I am surprised by the government’s indecisiveness towards maintaining an unprejudiced infrastructure regime. Yet we see dashing fly over projects and multinational alliances towards congregation of wishful future and a symmetrical traffic flow.

Yet among all these there seems to be a connection, a distant one, which articulates a relationship which is much stronger beyond the inequalities, wealth differentials, bribery, orthodoxy to look at “home” as a collection of networks weaved within a greater body and somehow the absenteeism of such indispensables wouldn’t allow the progress of the body itself.

Labels: Indiantrip