Incredible India Part One

Even before we got to India, I had a positive first impression of the country. Two students had joined the ship in Mauritius, Sneha and Anousha. They were chosen by their local Rotary club to join the ship. They conducted most of the cultural pre-port meeting for India along with an interport lecturer. After the pre-port meeting, I hung around afterwards because I think a group of us were going to ask a question about which train to take to Agra. Anyway, after the presentation we ended up talking to the girls for upwards of two hours in the hallway outside the Union. It was great! We talked about family, schoolwork, future plans, what India and the U.S. are like. They spoke English really well, but sometimes we would have to rephrase things. It was funny when Anousha and Sneha would disagree about things too. I even learned more about my friends, since we were all sharing stories and everything. They even had little gifts for us – I picked out a little wooden elephant on a keychain. I had bought a few trinkets that say “Pittsburgh” on them in the airport before I left for SAS and gave them to the girls – Sneha picked out a magnet and Anousha picked out a mini deck of cards. Another girl gave out postcards from her home state of Utah. It was a nice meeting.

I had asked about Indian music and Sneha said that she had some CDs that she could give me, but needed to copy them first. So, I came to visit her the next day and talked to the girls for a little bit in the afternoon and she gave me three CDs with mostly Bollywood filmi music on them. Then there was a farewell Q&A reception for them that I went to. It was really great to meet them and that gave me a great, positive feeling about our arrival to Chennai the next day.

First thing in the morning I got up and got breakfast. We weren’t required to pick up our passports for India, but instead needed a shore pass as identification once we were off the ship. So, I had to pick that up after the diplomatic briefing meeting. There was also a money exchange set up on the ship, so I exchanged about $10, just so I would have enough rupees to use a taxi. Then, some of my friends were going to an ATM, but I decided not to, since I had to leave for a trip at 12:30 p.m. and by this time it was already around 10 a.m. My friends left and I went down to my cabin to pack for our trip the next day. I had planned to eat lunch, but got caught up in preparing for our trip, so I just went to the meeting point outside the ship for my field trip.

It was an FDP, or a field directed practicum – basically, an educational field trip – for my English As A Global Language class that was about the use of English at an outsourcing business. It was really interesting. The founder of this company called Congruent, which dealt with managing pension information, spoke to us about the usefulness of outsourcing and the role that English plays in it. The most interesting aspect of his presentation was that he said outsourcing actually isn’t as cost effective as it used to be about 10 years ago when the idea took off – some workers’ skills in IT or American English are actually making them more valuable and irreplaceable, so they can demand or achieve higher salaries. Workers have to learn an American accent in order to communicate with their customers – I think this was illustrated best when the founder said, “Language skills aren’t necessarily communication skills.” He said that watching “Friends” is one way employees actually study American English. The founder used one example, among many, of differences between the British English learned in India and American English: the phrase “touch base” isn’t familiar to Indians since that is a reference to touching baseball bases and the most popular sport in India is cricket. The company employs about 200 people and has branches in the U.S. to help deal with their customers there.

Next, we heard a presentation by the president of the Rotary Club in Chennai. I thought it was interesting, since we got to meet Sneha and Anousha who were sponsored by the organization. He spoke at length about a few of the Rotary’s programs in Chennai, including rebuilding a school, a major renewal program including running water, paved streets and education in a slum neighborhood, and a bakery course program that helped women learn a skill and start their own business. The club seemed to do a lot of good in the city, which countered my image of the Rotary Club as old people who just have luncheons and play bingo. The program has been associated with SAS for 12 years, sending the students on the ship. 

I also noticed that news offices were located in the same building. I thought it was neat to see the tuk-tuks marked “press”. I got speak with the PR representative for the company, Ganesh, who was really interested when I started to talk with him about newspapers in India. Each state has there own newspaper in addition to the nation newspapers in both Hindi and English. He said that you didn’t have to specialize in journalism in school to be able to write for the newspaper. It also seems that if there are so many different newspapers in different languages there would actually be more jobs in print than, for instance, in the U.S. where all of the news in English. I think that should be a new marketing strategy for the newspaper industry – get everyone to speak a different language! Haha. Then I told him I was collecting newspapers from each country and he collected some newspapers from around the office and gave them to me. It was so nice of him! They served us some snacks including samosas (which I would have about 6 of over the course of the entire stay in India). They also gave us each a gift, which turned out later to be little wooden peacocks and elephants. Then we were able to go up to the rooftop, which seemed like where everyone from the office building came to eat lunch and take breaks from work. It was nice, since there was a horse racetrack near the building, but the area was crisscrossed by highways and it was a pretty industrial place. Overall, I enjoyed the FDP.

It’s strange because I remember odd things from that day that have stuck in my mind. Like the traffic that we were immersed in with all types of honking horns, motorcycles in huge packs – some with the father driving, the daughter smushed in the middle and the mom in the back – buses packed full of people. The smell of the city, which was like soot and exhaust near the port, fish and sewage near the beach, garbage and dirt in the city. All the colors of the people – their skin as well as their clothes – all different shades. It seems socially acceptable to throw garbage into the street. And, for some reason, everything seems covered with a thin layer of dirt; grimier than any place in the United States. And that’s just how it is, unless you’re inside a business or a home. The other thing that makes India unique is the languages. Unless you’re familiar with Hindi, there are hardly any similarities I could pick up on with any of the romance languages, so I was completely lost. But, then again, just about everyone knows at least a little English. In my opinion, most of the charm of India comes from its people. I didn’t meet a single person who was rude or uncaring directly to me in the five days we were there. Everyone was kind, hospitable and helpful.

That night, I went to a welcome reception that Semester At Sea had planned with some college students from an engineering school in Chennai. There are a lot of higher education schools in India. I think I understood that most kids start school at the age of three, have three years of kindergarten and then go to 12 years of grade school, similar to what we have. I think there are a few tests, one between 10th and 11th grade and one after 12th grade, which the students must pass in order to continue to the next level of education. Sneha also said that there’s an interview with students and parents between the kindergarten and 1st grade level that is very difficult and helps determine where you will go to grade school. Then I think you are able to get your undergraduate degree in two years and masters in two years, but I could be wrong. Everyone strives to send their kids to private school for obvious reasons, just like in the U.S. The taxi driver that we hired one day said that he hadn’t taken a day off in seven years just so his three kids could afford to go to a private school and his wife wouldn’t have to work.

The reception was at a hotel outside in a courtyard. We were greeted by women who gave us flower garlands and put kum-kum on our foreheads (those red dots in the middle of Hindu women’s foreheads). Then we were greeted by the college students and I met two guys (who I think were a little nervous) and talked to them for a bit before I wandered away to talk to another SASer and a guy he had met. All in all, I think I met about five students and we talked about school and family and stuff like that. Since they were all engineering students (most were electronics engineers) I mentioned that my dad was an engineer. One girl asked what kind of engineer he was and after I told her that he’s a chemical engineer she said, “Oh, he must be very brilliant to be a chemical engineer.” I, of course, said that I wish he could’ve heard her say that! Haha. There were some food and drinks for us, so I sat with one of the students and another SASer to eat while we chatted and watched a Indian classical dance performance. I also got my first serving of chai tea (but the word “chai” means “tea” so I learned that “chai tea” is actually  redundant), which was so good! I found out later that the tea and milk and water are actually boiled together, so it is much richer and milkier than the way we think of regular tea. It was really good! With my chai in hand I walked around to where there was a long set of tables with Indian handicrafts on them – I just looked, however, and didn’t buy anything. No sooner did I start talking with the girl (who’s name was also Sneha) that complimented Dad’s career choice than did I hear that we were supposed to get back on the bus. We got back to the ship at about 10 p.m. I chalked up a great first day in India. But the adventures in "Incredible India," as it's called in the tourism ads, was just beginning!