I feel like blogging
Yes, I should do different stuff than blogging - hence I am blogging! But who cares...
Two ex-trainees who got stuck here slightly longer than their traineeship (2 years +) had their farewell dinner last Saturday. They spontaneously declared it also MY farewell as well, as they would be gone once the right time had come. A bit early I thought. However, I enjoyed the sinful buffet dinner at the JW Marriott in Juhu. My first Salami in 6 months or so. It was worth it! But still I am going to have another farewell.
Knowing that leaving is near, I think if I managed to understand the city and country the way it works. I don't know, but I keep having my aha-moments.
What strikes the newly arriving as first is the pathetic poverty of wide parts of the population here. It is actually omnipresent. In India, I read today, there are more beggars, than there are Swiss in the world. The amount of people begging in Mumbai is twice the population of my hometown: 300,000 people!
However, the locals are not really outraged by this. I once told a local business man, that given the fact that half of the people in town are living either in slums or in the streets, I would not feel in the position to complain to much on my own shared flat. He answered simply: "But you don't want to compare yourself to them, do you?" Well, being a naive socialist from the West I see one city as one society with one responsibility.
Anyway, apart for the outsider, poverty seems not a problem! It is simply part of the landscape.
No matter if you are in the sparkling boomtown of Bandra-East, or the always posh expat and government ghetto of Cuffe Parade, you will always find a slum right next to it. In the case of Bandra-East even Asia's largest: Dharavi! but if you understand how Indian middle class (the people who usually shake their heads about these people living in "so pathetic conditions") in India works, the whole thing makes sense.
Middle class people might make faces when seeing slums and the people in it. But they deeply depend on them. There is no household in middle class India, without maid, servant or driver. To give you an idea on the salaries: if you own a car in Mumbai, your fuel expenses will be higher than your expenses on the guy driving it through the most undisciplined and lame traffic in the world. He would get roughly INR 5000.- (less tha EUR 100.-). The price of a hut in a slum at the same time varies between EUR 5,000.- up to 20,000.- or even more.
But there is simply no way, middle class could work without domestic staff.
An example: a colleague of mine explained the situation by the fact, that inventions like dish washers had not reached India earlier than just a few years ago.
I replied that I did not have a dishwasher in the 5 years I was living in Geneva - but honestly I had a lot of disputes with my flatmate over who is in charge of doing the dishes. Anyway, it did not kill me. My colleague remained silent.
In a nutshell, it is funny to see, that those who feel socially disgusted by the poor, prove to be highly dependant on the same in living their difference.
Another thing which stroke me is the almost undoubted passion of the Indian for their leaders. Not only politics (where you would actually find a certain frustration and strong distrust combined with support for populist leaders) but generally. the ones higher up in the ranks are automatically assumed to be the smarter, the better. I personally find it poor and unworthy of any democracy that you would accept leadership as it comes, without questioning legitimacy (this is very Swiss though) or performance or simply integrity.
However, having worked in an Indian team I feel like there was a certain need, perceived among the locals, for guidance. Together with the assumption, that the leader is right, you will find the individuals (wrongly) assuming, that they are simply not in the position to judge or decide on their own. But this again has its source in Indian society, which always compares individuals, refusing to admit, that a team is more than simply the sum of all its individuals.
I have always been told, that the Swiss were individual. Well, the Indian are not much better, particularly at work. But they just did not throw the values of family overboard.
Written all this, I am asking myself, if I will ever be courageous enough to tell my team about this blog. Ironically they know about it: Within the company, several departments have their own blog, hence HR as well thought of having one. In the discussion within the team, we were asked who was blogging. I was the only one to raise my hand. And I cowardly refused to share the address.
Two ex-trainees who got stuck here slightly longer than their traineeship (2 years +) had their farewell dinner last Saturday. They spontaneously declared it also MY farewell as well, as they would be gone once the right time had come. A bit early I thought. However, I enjoyed the sinful buffet dinner at the JW Marriott in Juhu. My first Salami in 6 months or so. It was worth it! But still I am going to have another farewell.
Knowing that leaving is near, I think if I managed to understand the city and country the way it works. I don't know, but I keep having my aha-moments.
What strikes the newly arriving as first is the pathetic poverty of wide parts of the population here. It is actually omnipresent. In India, I read today, there are more beggars, than there are Swiss in the world. The amount of people begging in Mumbai is twice the population of my hometown: 300,000 people!
However, the locals are not really outraged by this. I once told a local business man, that given the fact that half of the people in town are living either in slums or in the streets, I would not feel in the position to complain to much on my own shared flat. He answered simply: "But you don't want to compare yourself to them, do you?" Well, being a naive socialist from the West I see one city as one society with one responsibility.
Anyway, apart for the outsider, poverty seems not a problem! It is simply part of the landscape.
No matter if you are in the sparkling boomtown of Bandra-East, or the always posh expat and government ghetto of Cuffe Parade, you will always find a slum right next to it. In the case of Bandra-East even Asia's largest: Dharavi! but if you understand how Indian middle class (the people who usually shake their heads about these people living in "so pathetic conditions") in India works, the whole thing makes sense.
Middle class people might make faces when seeing slums and the people in it. But they deeply depend on them. There is no household in middle class India, without maid, servant or driver. To give you an idea on the salaries: if you own a car in Mumbai, your fuel expenses will be higher than your expenses on the guy driving it through the most undisciplined and lame traffic in the world. He would get roughly INR 5000.- (less tha EUR 100.-). The price of a hut in a slum at the same time varies between EUR 5,000.- up to 20,000.- or even more.
But there is simply no way, middle class could work without domestic staff.
An example: a colleague of mine explained the situation by the fact, that inventions like dish washers had not reached India earlier than just a few years ago.
I replied that I did not have a dishwasher in the 5 years I was living in Geneva - but honestly I had a lot of disputes with my flatmate over who is in charge of doing the dishes. Anyway, it did not kill me. My colleague remained silent.
In a nutshell, it is funny to see, that those who feel socially disgusted by the poor, prove to be highly dependant on the same in living their difference.
Another thing which stroke me is the almost undoubted passion of the Indian for their leaders. Not only politics (where you would actually find a certain frustration and strong distrust combined with support for populist leaders) but generally. the ones higher up in the ranks are automatically assumed to be the smarter, the better. I personally find it poor and unworthy of any democracy that you would accept leadership as it comes, without questioning legitimacy (this is very Swiss though) or performance or simply integrity.
However, having worked in an Indian team I feel like there was a certain need, perceived among the locals, for guidance. Together with the assumption, that the leader is right, you will find the individuals (wrongly) assuming, that they are simply not in the position to judge or decide on their own. But this again has its source in Indian society, which always compares individuals, refusing to admit, that a team is more than simply the sum of all its individuals.
I have always been told, that the Swiss were individual. Well, the Indian are not much better, particularly at work. But they just did not throw the values of family overboard.
Written all this, I am asking myself, if I will ever be courageous enough to tell my team about this blog. Ironically they know about it: Within the company, several departments have their own blog, hence HR as well thought of having one. In the discussion within the team, we were asked who was blogging. I was the only one to raise my hand. And I cowardly refused to share the address.
posted by Sabi at 4:44 PM
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