Reflection

Since being back into the routine of school, it's crazy to think that just two months ago I was preparing to go on this whirlwind adventure to India. Whenever I pass by others from the trip, we always smile at each other and jokingly say, "remember that time we went to India? Did that really happen?" The trip flew by, and I genuinely miss it--the people, sights, food, adventure--and would love to go back. It's come to the point where I make Indian food for dinner at least two times a week since I miss it so much!

Like I expected, learning about the culture in a classroom is nothing compared to being fully immersed in it. In my pre-trip perceptions, I wrote about how I thought there would be many populous urban areas but for the most part, it would be rural slums which was pretty accurate. I was surprised that the cities were not as built-up as I expected. There is still a lot of development going on throughout the country--even Mumbai which was the most cosmopolitan area we visited. The amount of poor areas was expected, but still a little shocking to witness firsthand. The contrast between wealthy and poor classes was much larger than I expected. 

I also expected that the presence of religion would be all over the place but that wasn't really true. Many of the museums and sights we visited showed the strong importance of Hindu and Muslim religions and the offices we visited had little religious sculptures on most desks, but it wasn't something that was everywhere.

Another thing I expected (thanks to the movie industry) was that there would be bright, rich, beautiful colors all over--and you know what? I was right on this one! Before the trip, I found and posted a bunch of pictures of India onto my Pinterest account. One of my friends commented on it by saying the pictures were beautiful, but that India wouldn't really look like that. Surprisingly though, for the most part, buildings, fabrics, and even trucks, were decked out in color.

After seeing the movie, Outsourced, I assumed the companies we were going to visit would be similar to the office in the movie--run down, small, with various technical problems--but that wasn't the case at all. Nearly every building we visited was very nice and westernized. Women mainly wore traditional Indian clothing and the desks were not personalized, but besides that, they all seemed very similar to offices you might see in the United States.

The office from Outsourced

A final perception I had back in December was that the culture shock from Outsourced (yes, most of my expectations are from movies) was over exaggerated. It emphasized the commonality of people and kids begging for money and food, mass amounts of people everywhere, and crazy driving--all of which were very accurate. 

All in all, I couldn't be happier about my experience in India. I can't imagine getting to know the country any other way. While it was a trip with constant moving, we saw so much from a business and tourist perspective, which I am so grateful for. I met some amazing people, saw breathtaking sights, ate the most flavorful food of my life, learned an overwhelming amount on outsourcing overseas, and learned some very unique beliefs that I have never been exposed to. It was the trip of a lifetime and our group was so blessed to have such helpful people leading us through it. I'm hoping an opportunity will fall into place in the future that will allow me to get back to the beautiful country! 

Pune: Corporate Visits

Day 8

The ride from Mumbai to Pune was beautiful as we weaved around mountains to get there. Pune is the big administrative and IT city in India where our final three corporate visits took place. The first company we went to here is actually a division of a U.S. company. Their Pune office was small with no more than 50 employees. The purpose of this company is to provide software building, development, and consulting services while working in conjunction with their labs in Milwaukee and Minneapolis. The presentation we sat through explained that they are geared towards being a service company that develops software from the ground up--for example, they created the Menards app for the iPhone and Android platform. Since they are such a small company, they tend to only have small teams of 5-10 people who will work on one project at a time. While that is a limitation for them, it serves as a good challenge for their workers. They also explained that they usually don't hire "freshers" (the term for recent college graduates) since they hire based on technical skills. They do, however, look to take on interns, train them with Agile, and then possibly bring them into the company if they perform well. Being the only non-IT business major in the group, once they started going into detail on Agile software development, I started to get a little lost for the first time on the trip.

The second company of the day was an extreme contrast from the first. This visit was at a company with over 145,000 employees worldwide. Those in Pune work and essentially live on their "campus" that most closely resembles a big Silicon Valley tech company. They began in Pune and have since expanded worldwide doing consulting, business IT, engineering, BPO, cloud, and mobile services for over 600 clients. They truly appear to be the leader in IT in India and I think much of that stems from their global delivery model from the 1980's which they said was an interruption in the industry that made offshore outsourcing the thing to do. It was the idea to figure out where and how different types of work would be better...be it onsite, near shore, or offshore. After the presentation, we were given a tour of their campus made up of numerous office and conference buildings, a library, cafes, a supermarket, a clothing store, gym, racquetball courts, an outdoor pool, etc. You name it, they probably have it. Since the campus is so large, the company has bikes everywhere so that anyone can jump on one, take it to the opposite end of campus, and park it for someone else to use. 

Day 9


Our final corporate visit was an exciting one--we had a few presentations scheduled, lunch, a campus tour, and then our Marquette student group had the opportunity to give a presentation to a big group of their "freshers." This company started out in 1980 and is headquartered in Troy, Michigan. They have a global headcount of over 17,000 employees that is rapidly growing (they only had 8,300 employees in 2008!). They have 19 sales offices and 3 campuses in India. The beautiful campus in Pune takes up nearly 77-acres of land along a river with mountains in the distance. Upon our arrival, everyone was extremely welcoming. We were greeted in a traditional Indian manner receiving a red bindi mark on the forehead, rice tossed above us, incense was lit, and we were each given a flower. They also had our professors and some of the students light a ring of candles using the same lit candle to signify our welcome. Between the campus, greetings, and presentations, this was my favorite company on the trip. As a business, they deliver custom IT and knowledge process solutions to a variety of clients. 56% of their client focus is in the financial industry (doing things like mobile banking), 13% insurance, 17% healthcare, and the remainder in retail, logistics, and manufacturing. When a group of employees are working on a project, they are not just focused on the technical skills for the project but are also encouraged to understand the domain they are working in. What I thought set them apart from other companies is their philosophy to really focus on the customer and having that client for life...and going off of that, they put a lot of effort into keeping their employees for life. They kept stressing the point that they are, "small enough to listen but big enough to deliver." The second presentation was about their HR practices where we heard their 5 core values (that could be seen all around campus); simple, smart, speed, stretch, and synergy. These values are the basis for their employee reviews and performance.

Being such a large and growing company, their hiring process is complex. In this past year alone, they received 300,000 applications, narrowed that down to 110,000 to test, and finally hired 5,000 individuals. It sounds like an outrageous number of initial applicants--but that's what they want. Rather than limiting themselves to on campus scouting, they use websites like monster.com to recruit more people. From that round of 110,000, they are tested first on language and communication skills, then put into group discussions to go over a topic together, then the best move onto individual interviews, and are finally tested on technical skills. Another interesting aspect of their HR practices is their performance management process. Project managers will rate employees using a table that compares an individuals score for each of the 5 core values compared to their performance on a project. All of these scores are public info among the company and used as a way to track what people do and eventually used for internal promotions.

The presentation we gave to their freshers was another great experience. We spoke to a group of about 30 people in a conference room which was nice because it made it easier for us to interact with everyone. We focused on talking about U.S. business culture, the differences compared to what we have learned and experienced compared to Indian business culture, and then we went through some scenarios that would be common experiences in the BPO industry. With nearly 3 hours to cover material, it actually flew by. We were all a little worried that their group wouldn't be very interactive as we learned that Indians tend to be shy when it comes to participation, but they proved us wrong so it was a great learning experience for both groups.

Mumbai

DAY 6

Mumbai is the financial and commercial center of India, the most populated city in the country, making up a beautiful metropolis built on the coast of the Arabian Sea--it quickly became my favorite city in India and I would love to go back to visit again. While there was still a huge amount of poverty throughout the city, it felt much more cosmopolitan compared to the other places we had seen. Since it was Sunday, the entire day was devoted to sightseeing. Our tour guide was so sweet and spoke extremely clear English.

We started the day off by visiting a huge outdoor laundromat called Dhobi Ghat where families, hotels, and schools bring their laundry to be done.

Next we went to see Antilla, a $1 billion skyscraper that is home (yes, home) to India's wealthiest man, Mukesh Ambani. The house is the most expensive in the world and has just about everything you could ever need inside...including a room with man-made snow in case you need a taste of Milwaukee. What bothered me the most about it was that you could walk a block away from Antilla and be surrounded by poor families living on the street. It was a strange and depressing contrast between classes.

After this we visited the Hanging Gardens which is a park full of greenery shaped like animals with a great view of the ocean.

     

Next up, we spent some time Mani Bhavan, where Ghandi lived from 1917-1934. The building now serves as a library, memorial, and museum recognizing Ghandi and all of his achievements.

Our final big tourist sight of the day was near the Bombay Municipal Corporation (pictured below) where we visited the Prince of Wales Museum. We spent about an hour here and were able to explore numerous exhibits on ancient Indian history and art.

After the busy day, we stopped for a late lunch and enjoyed some delicious southern Indian food. My favorite dish of the trip was their coconut curry fish. The remainder of the day was spent shopping around some markets and brushing up on my bartering skills that I used when I visited China. 

Day 7


Monday morning was devoted to our next corporate visit. This company is headquartered in the U.S. with offices around the world and India that specializes in helping clients with audits, financial advising, taxes, and consulting. We arrived there around 10 am and it was pretty empty because the typical Indian business day goes from 10 in the morning up until 7 at night to overlap with the U.S. time zones. One of the girls taking us through the office explained that the price of living in Mumbai is so expensive that she commutes two hours--each way--everyday as a means to save money. I also noticed that the desks at every office we visited were very bare--most were lacking pictures, decorations, and even computers. She explained that most Indians tend to keep their "home life" separate from work. Some desks may have a picture or little Ganesh statue, but that's about it. Everyone works on a laptop too, so they take them home every night.

Delhi: Company Visits & Sights

Day 4

After a few days of adjusting to the time change and sightseeing, it was time for our first corporate visits. Due to privacy, I can't name the companies on this blog but I will do my best to explain what they each do. The first company we visited was a software development company that also provides R&D tech services for various businesses. The company was founded in 1991 in the Silicon Valley with offices across the United States and development centers in San Jose, CA and Noida (where we visited), Indore, and Bangalore. Clients are from a variety of industries including financial services, healthcare, and telecommunications. The building was in what seemed like a poor area, so I was surprised at how modern and westernized the office was inside. One of the ladies I spoke to a lot while we walked through the building works in the HR department. I was interested to learn that much of their employee benefits resemble what many "trendy" U.S. companies aim to provide. They have an extremely strong focus on their employees as they are the key strength of the company. Their facilities within the building include a daycare, a "chill-out" zone, a game room, a gym, and a library to allow employees to take breaks throughout the day.

The second corporate visit of the day fell through but we were lucky enough to get in touch with another nearby company last minute. The focus of this outsourced company is to work with U.S. clients in the healthcare industry (both providers and payers) by reducing costs and the quality of back-office operations. Some of their products and services include medical coding and audits, billing, patient assistance, insurance verifications, claims pricing and adjustments, and enrollment support. They work with hospitals and other medical centers to essentially manage their medical documents and revenue recovery programs. We had a panel type discussion with their CEO and a few other top employees who know more about the U.S. healthcare system than most Americans. Compared to the first more westernized company visit, this second company was much more of what I expected offices in India to look like--with smaller desk space and rows of employees typing away on their computers. 

Following these visits, we stopped at a market to do some shopping. Being the capital of India, there are armed guards all over the place--they literally stood in front of every store at this market to open doors and monitor everything going on. While it's strange to see so many guards carrying huge machine guns on their back, in a way it's comforting to know that they have strong security and are looking out for everyone. This market--like most in India--was congested with people, rickshaws, scooters, and vendors. After a busy day, it was almost too exhausting to shop around the area. 

Our professor, Dr. Adya, is originally from India and her parents, younger sister, and brother-in-law still live in Delhi. After shopping, we went to their home for dinner. This was one of my favorite parts of the whole trip. I loved seeing what a traditional Indian home was like. Me and the other girls in the group spent a lot of time going through Dr. Adya's wedding albums while she explained all the details of an Indian wedding. Her sister brought out her own wedding dress and before I knew it, I was trying it on myself. The dress was beautiful and I was surprised that the gold details made it so heavy--I can't imagine wearing it for an entire ceremony!

After learning about Indian weddings, I naturally I had to do some research on my own. I came across the video below that shows a recent Hindu wedding in the U.S. mixed with a Sri Lankan ceremony for the groom. I'm starting to think I need to become friends with more Indians so that I can go to a wedding like this someday...

Jay & Rusha from I Do Films on Vimeo.

Day 5

The next day we drove around Delhi to see some of their government buildings from the bus. The main sight--which was my favorite of the trip--was the Akshardham Temple. This temple is the largest Hindu temple in India and the details both inside, outside, and surrounding it were absolutely breathtaking. Our tour guide here let us roam around on our own and  I was lucky enough to walk through the monument with Dr. Adya (who we all think is a walking encyclopedia on India) and she explained various details about Hinduism. Unfortunately, because of extremely tight security, we were not allowed to bring cameras into the temple or surrounding area so the pictures and video (which don't do it justice) are from the temple's main website.

After walking around the temple, we stopped at a modern shopping mall for lunch and then headed to the airport to fly to Mumbai.

The Sights of Agra

After a long and bumpy bus ride, we made it to Agra where we immediately did some sightseeing before the day ended. We visited Fatehpur Sikri--a beautiful ancient palace that was built by the Mughal Empire in the late 1500's. It was built for the purpose of being the capital of Agra, but because of complications with the water system, it was abandoned and untouched for hundreds of years. It is made out of red sandstone which deteriorates easily but it has been restored over the years since it is a big tourist attraction. They also try to keep the palace under safe environmental conditions and won't allow vehicles running on gasoline nearby so we had to take a special type of bus to get to it.

Day 3

We were suppose to head to the Taj Mahal in the morning, but due to the typical dense fog of Agra, we postponed that for the afternoon in hopes that the weather would clear up by then. With that, we started the morning off at the Agra Fort which is another beautiful fortress with two mosques inside that was once home to Mughal rulers. After about the hundredth time that our tour guide said "Mughal" (it's pronounced like muggle), I asked him who they were--just to clarify that he wasn't making a weird Harry Potter reference. He explained that the Mughal Empire refers to the Muslim dynasty that were descendants of the Mongol region that ruled most of India from the 16th to 19th century. 

Our tour guide told us that from the look out point in the picture above, you could see the Taj Mahal in the distance. I laughed, thinking he was joking to make us look silly trying to squint looking for it. Thanks to the internet, I found the picture below that shows the view on a clear day...I guess he was telling the truth!

To continue to stall time in hopes of the fog disappearing, we spent some time at one of the malls in the area. I bought a traditional Indian dress--I believe it's called a kameez--and a bunch of people in the group purchased some Indian snacks to try. We also had to be curious Americans and stopped in McDonald's to scope out the beef-free menu. I wasn't feeling that daring so I just ordered some coffee. Surprisingly, everyone seemed to enjoy what they ordered.

After this, we headed towards the Taj Mahal. Before the trip, all I knew about the Taj Mahal was that it is one of the new seven wonders of the world, so it was interesting to learn the story behind the famous building. Shah Jahan, a prince, fell in love and married a Muslim princess named Mumtaz. Shah soon became the Emperor and over time, Mumtaz became extremely ill. While she was passing away, Shah promised her that he would never remarry and, in honor of her and their love, he would build the most beautiful mausoleum surrounding her grave. After 22 years and over 20,000 workers, the Taj Mahal was completed. Inside the main door under the largest gate is the grave where both tombs remain. How's that for a love story?

The symmetry of the building is perfect and is a great representation of Mughal architecture. To the left of the Taj Mahal, there is a mosque that is still used for prayer. Upon first seeing the Taj, I had complete chills. It's such an amazing experience to see something in person after hearing so much about it beforehand.

 We were not allowed to take pictures inside, so the above picture of the tombs was found online.

After the busy day in Agra, we got back on our bus and headed back towards Delhi for the night.

Jaipur: Days 1 & 2

After one movie, two vegetarian curry meals, and an eleven hour nap, we landed in Delhi around 7 pm on Monday night. Right when our plan hit the ground I noticed it started to smell like incense. As if she was reading my mind, the flight attendant behind me addressed the smokey smell by informing us that Delhi has recently replaced Beijing as the smoggiest city in the world. It had rained earlier in the day so the mix of humidity and smog left a nice, moist, hazy cloudiness everywhere--even in the airport. We took a quick bus ride to our hotel, ate dinner, and settled in our rooms for an early night.


Day 1

I like to think I'm somewhat invincible to jet lag since I sleep so much on airplanes, but around 4 in the morning I was wide awake--not common for the night owl within me. I tossed and turned a few times when my roommate, Rosie, let me know she was wide awake too. Around 6 we got out of bed to get ready, had breakfast at the hotel, and loaded into the bus with the rest of our group to embark on the five hour drive to Jaipur. This was our first real experience with Indian traffic. Think Chicago during rush hour but everyone weaves around each other, nearly hitting one another, few signs, few lights, few rules. The honking culture is really interesting. In America we are use to a car honk being negative, but in India the non-stop horns are simply to let other drivers you are there in case they don't see you. Most trucks even have "honk please" written on the back of them to ensure other drivers follow this. It sounds absolutely chaotic, but it works.

The rest of the drive was full of unique sights. The majority of what we passed by were partially torn down buildings. Dr. Adya explained that a lot of people will just start developing buildings without government approval--which in return will get torn down by the government later on since it wasn't suppose to be built in the first place. We passed a few developed areas and some beautiful mountains that looked remarkably similar to the mountains in southern California...only with camels and wild monkeys roaming around. I have also become fascinated by Indians ability to pack people into cars. A typical sedan might have four people sitting in the back seat, with others sitting on their laps, and then a kid or two  on top of those laps. Some people will even stand on the back bumper of trucks and jeeps for a ride on the highway. I'm grateful for the spacious bus we will be using for our transportation. 

We got to Jaipur and had another delicious Indian meal. I'm falling more and more in love with curry and the other spices used in all of their dishes. I ordered a chicken masala dish which uses a tomato curry sauce. After most Indian meals, they will serve fennel seeds that taste like black licorice along with sugar crystals--the mixture has a very distinct taste that is meant to cleanse the palate.The restaurant we ate at was a big tourist spot so they had some fun music and dancing for entertainment. Jaipur is a very popular tourist destination for India since it still remains very historic and traditional so we saw a lot of foreigners. 

After lunch, we picked up a tour guide (literally pulled over and he jumped on the bus) who showed us around Jaipur's famous Pink City. We first stopped at this place called Jantar Mantar which is home to various large astronomical instruments including the largest sun dial in the world which is pretty impressive; unfortunately we didn't have any sun out this day do we weren't able to see the dials in action. I'm amazed by the colors and artistic details throughout this country. Buildings are painted in bright pastels, women wear rich jewel tones, and trucks have so many beautiful paintings on them--all of which contrast the dry desert landscape that we've seen.

After a visually stimulating tour of Jaipur, we were dropped off at our hotel. I joined a few others for a search for an ATM to get my hands on 1,500 rupees (about $30). After this successful stop, we had dinner that was held on the top floor of the hotel where we had another delicious "family style" meal.

Day 2

I woke up around 5 am again and sat in bed for awhile before getting ready for the day. If only it always felt so natural to wake up so early. 

We met up with the group, loaded up the bus, and headed for the Amber Fort--a breathtaking palace built up one of the mountain ranges that overlooks a lake in Jaipur. In order to get up the mountain people can work out their quads by climbing hundreds of stairs or you can take a much more exciting and bumpy ride...on an elephant! I took the ride with another kid in the group, Joe. We were the second to last pair to board our elephant but apparently we were on the Seabiscuit of the pack because we passed everyone else in the group and were the first to arrive at the top. Each elephant has a seat for two people and then a "driver" that sits on top of the elephant's head. Our group tip was paid in advance we were warned that they would pressure us to tip them again at the end but we were not suppose to pay anymore. Sure enough once we passed everyone, got to the top, and took some pictures, our driver turned around to cheerfully ask how we enjoyed the ride, and then motioned for a tip. We told him no numerous times to which he responded by stopping the elephant and holding us hostage. We jokingly thought about unhooking the seat and jumping off ourselves but eventually gave in and gave him an extra tip. The palace is made out of both sandstone and marble--it was so large and beautiful. We spent a lot of time wandering around and enjoying the beautiful view from the top. One of my favorite parts of the palace was a hallway made up of a bunch of little mirrors. You could light a candle and it would light up the entire hallway since the light would reflect on every mirror.

We just finished off lunch and are on our way to Agra where we will be seeing the Taj Mahal in the morning. Namaste!

Bound for India

In Spring of 2011, I went to China as part of another business class trip. All of the preparation and information beforehand was helpful, but nothing could quite teach me the culture of China except for the country itself. I have a feeling the same will happen with India. Learning about their way of life through class discussions, readings, news, and movies can give you a mild sense of the country--but you can't fully grasp it until you go there and see the land, the people, and the culture with your own eyes. I remember a few Indian acquaintances that I had in middle and high school would travel there to visit family members and bring back items like scarves, jewelry, and banana chips to share with the class. While I was always fascinated by their opportunity to travel across the globe, I never really thought about traveling there myself. I think that seeing China firsthand really pushed me towards the desire to travel more and more whenever possible because it is the best way to soak up a new culture, especially with countries that are becoming increasingly important in business.


Throughout high school, and even up until now, the picture that comes to mind when I think about India is that they have many populous urban areas, but for the most part they have poor rural slums. I hate to say it, but most of my current views of India stem from movies I have seen that take place over there. Slumdog Millionaire did a great job of capturing what it would be like to grow up in impoverished areas with little money, gangs, etc. Eat, Pray, Love emphasized the importance of religion throughout India's culture since the main character learned the "power of prayer" through Hinduism. It also sparked my interest in India through the bright and rich colors, fabrics, jewelry, henna, and architecture.

I am also interested in seeing the businesses there firsthand. In class we have talked about the differences between the way they do business compared to Americans. It's hard to imagine that most companies don't start their day until 10 am and go later into the evening to help with the time difference. News reports keep saying that India is "the next China" since their economy is growing so rapidly--much thanks to their industrialization with the IT industry. I recently watched the movie Outsourced which is about a manager's entire U.S. department being outsourced to India. He unwillingly is sent to India to train the new call center and goes through a lot of culture shock--dealing with (literally) jumping into a full bus, overcoming the language barrier, trying new foods, motivating workers to cut down their call times, and dealing with children begging for money. Some things seemed a bit exaggerated, but it will be interesting to travel there to see the people and businesses to decide for myself. 

I am eagerly awaiting for New Years Day which will kick off 2012 with an adventurous start. It's less than a month away, and I know it will fly by.