Since there is demand for International products as well, the shelves in this small space are packed with things from all over the world. I noticed a 12 or 16 oz bottle of coffee creamer from the US, available in just one flavor, selling for about $12!! And non Indian cheeses selling for $15 for about 8 oz. overall, it was a fascinating experience.
Mumbai:
EARLY the next morning ( the driver picked me up at 5:45am. Thanks largely to my friends in the US that agreed to give me wake up calls around 6:15pm EST I managed to be ready when he got there!) I headed to Mumbai (flight time of 2 hours). I met with colleagues there for work on Friday then stayed to see a bit of the city on Saturday, getting "home" to Gurgaon late Saturday night. I mistakenly thought that Mumbai would be a lot like Delhi, but it has a completely different feel. For starters, it's on the water. I can't tell you how ecstatic I was to see a large body of water - that's alway very calming to me. Sadly, Mumbai is even more polluted than Delhi, despite there being more cars in Delhi, so you often couldn't see very far out before the smog blocked the view. Mumbai also has a number of beautiful gardens and palm trees, etc lining the streets. Overall it felt more "green" to me, which was nice. Finally, there is a lot of colonial architecture there that I found very beautiful - the central train station, the police headquarters, a university, etc. I'll try and post pics of all the things I've described in this paragraph when I can. Unfortunately, despite seeing Slumdog Millionaire, I still was not prepared for the masses of makeshift shantytowns everywhere. There is such a stark contrast between the really rich (I passed the 40 story building that serves as the home for one of the worlds richest men) and the really poor, who live under blue tarps held up by wooden poles, scattered anywhere throughout the city. I think I unconsciously turned off my emotions temporarily because I was just overwhelmed and unable to process what I was seeing, because my brain automatically tried to imagine what daily life my look like for the folks living under those tarps. Before this blog site kicks me off again I want to share with you a link that I'd ask you to please check out. It's about the Dabbawala's who are a predominately illiterate and uneducated group of men that perform a service to pick (from a business persons home) their home cooked meal and deliver it to them at the work place. It's a fascinating six sigma business that navigates the complex public transportation system to deliver the meals correctly and on-time with incredible accuracy (an amazing study of six sigma principles carried out by these uneducated individuals with very little use of technology). Here's a Wikipedia link: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dabbawala.
I have more to say about a few other observations I've made about lifestyles here and the labor market, but I'll address those either later today or tomorrow. I've also been invited to part of an Indian wedding tomorrow night, which I'm super excited about. I think I've mentioned that it's wedding season here. There are a lot of large wedding halls along the major roads and I've heard and experienced that this can lead to HUGE traffic jams as people trying to get to the wedding will eventually just leave their car on the side of the road. It's quite an "Industry" here.
Mumbai:
EARLY the next morning ( the driver picked me up at 5:45am. Thanks largely to my friends in the US that agreed to give me wake up calls around 6:15pm EST I managed to be ready when he got there!) I headed to Mumbai (flight time of 2 hours). I met with colleagues there for work on Friday then stayed to see a bit of the city on Saturday, getting "home" to Gurgaon late Saturday night. I mistakenly thought that Mumbai would be a lot like Delhi, but it has a completely different feel. For starters, it's on the water. I can't tell you how ecstatic I was to see a large body of water - that's alway very calming to me. Sadly, Mumbai is even more polluted than Delhi, despite there being more cars in Delhi, so you often couldn't see very far out before the smog blocked the view. Mumbai also has a number of beautiful gardens and palm trees, etc lining the streets. Overall it felt more "green" to me, which was nice. Finally, there is a lot of colonial architecture there that I found very beautiful - the central train station, the police headquarters, a university, etc. I'll try and post pics of all the things I've described in this paragraph when I can. Unfortunately, despite seeing Slumdog Millionaire, I still was not prepared for the masses of makeshift shantytowns everywhere. There is such a stark contrast between the really rich (I passed the 40 story building that serves as the home for one of the worlds richest men) and the really poor, who live under blue tarps held up by wooden poles, scattered anywhere throughout the city. I think I unconsciously turned off my emotions temporarily because I was just overwhelmed and unable to process what I was seeing, because my brain automatically tried to imagine what daily life my look like for the folks living under those tarps. Before this blog site kicks me off again I want to share with you a link that I'd ask you to please check out. It's about the Dabbawala's who are a predominately illiterate and uneducated group of men that perform a service to pick (from a business persons home) their home cooked meal and deliver it to them at the work place. It's a fascinating six sigma business that navigates the complex public transportation system to deliver the meals correctly and on-time with incredible accuracy (an amazing study of six sigma principles carried out by these uneducated individuals with very little use of technology). Here's a Wikipedia link: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dabbawala.
I have more to say about a few other observations I've made about lifestyles here and the labor market, but I'll address those either later today or tomorrow. I've also been invited to part of an Indian wedding tomorrow night, which I'm super excited about. I think I've mentioned that it's wedding season here. There are a lot of large wedding halls along the major roads and I've heard and experienced that this can lead to HUGE traffic jams as people trying to get to the wedding will eventually just leave their car on the side of the road. It's quite an "Industry" here.
Sheri - I heard a story on the radio the other day that you might be interested in, about what being poor in India means to your nutrition and your health - http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2012/12/03/india-children-hunger. And here is a link to some info about Habitat in India - there is a video that does show a glimpse of life under those tarps and what Habitat can offer as a solution to India's housing crisis - http://habitatindia.in/ I'd be curious for you to ask your co-workers there about Habitat, if they are even familiar with it, what their impressions might be...
ReplyDelete