If you look around these days in any part of Bombay, you will see foreigners. It's not just the Europeans and North Americans anymore. You see East Asians, Africans and Latin Americans who can blend in easier than others.
There are many opportunities in this city and places like Bangalore and it's nice to see diversity but it's quite amusing reading rants about what some of these people think of life here. I point you out to a blog written by my friend using an analogy about the Mumbai Marathon and doing business in India.
http://indische-wirtschaft.de/?p=823
You'd read views here, which wouldn't be said in English given that they would offend Indians. But alas, there are those in India who can understand the languages of foreigners in a way that they would never understand ours.
My friend, the author talking about doing business and running a marathon in India says, "Beides ist in Indien härter als in Europa, weil die externen Verhältnisse viel extremer sind: Hitze, Luftverschmutzung, mangelnde Verpflegung beim Marathon beziehungsweise Wettbewerb, Bürokratie, Ressourcen-Zugang und Korruption im Geschäft)"
That would translate as both are more difficult in India because of more extreme external conditions like heat, air pollution, bureaucracy, lack of food during the marathon, corruption in business.
These factors that don't stop these pioneers from coming to India to make money. The torch-bearers of civilization become more local than the Indians when it comes to getting things done.
This one riles me the most.
"Trotz professionellen Top-Managements, hat man doch immer wieder mit inkompetenten Hilfskräften zu tun, die keine Ahnung haben"
The author says despite professional top management, you have to keep repeating things to get things done from incompetent support staff whom he calls clueless.
A few weeks ago, I met a photographer from Vienna who is heavily in debt in Austria and works for a magazine on its last legs. She's here to live the life equivalent of a British Raj officer and has the same usual racist complaints about local men.
She says they all look at her as a white chick, a commodity. She even has issues with her assistant. who she claims hits on her. Funny enough she shares a flat with her assistant as a paying guest. And the assistant is proud of hanging out with drug addicts and assorted spoilt brats. Maybe the Austrians haven't heard the proverb that "birds of a feather flock together."
The point is that you can't pay peanuts and get decent talent. Not in Europe and not in India.
It's amazing how so many European economies are on the verge of collapse and are floating because of IMF bailouts. Unemployment is rampant in the continent and so is racism often institutionalized. I think many European countries realise that they have major issues sans their colonies. How can you stay rich, when you can't exploit people in Africa and Asia?
Going back to my friend who wrote this piece, he's an adorable young man with some nice ideas and I wouldn't like to say anything bad about him. But I am sure that he enjoys the security of the German language to express his true views on India, a country to which he has tied his financial fortunes to.
All I can tell my foreign friends is, if you can't take the heat, leave the kitchen
There are many opportunities in this city and places like Bangalore and it's nice to see diversity but it's quite amusing reading rants about what some of these people think of life here. I point you out to a blog written by my friend using an analogy about the Mumbai Marathon and doing business in India.
http://indische-wirtschaft.de/?p=823
You'd read views here, which wouldn't be said in English given that they would offend Indians. But alas, there are those in India who can understand the languages of foreigners in a way that they would never understand ours.
My friend, the author talking about doing business and running a marathon in India says, "Beides ist in Indien härter als in Europa, weil die externen Verhältnisse viel extremer sind: Hitze, Luftverschmutzung, mangelnde Verpflegung beim Marathon beziehungsweise Wettbewerb, Bürokratie, Ressourcen-Zugang und Korruption im Geschäft)"
That would translate as both are more difficult in India because of more extreme external conditions like heat, air pollution, bureaucracy, lack of food during the marathon, corruption in business.
These factors that don't stop these pioneers from coming to India to make money. The torch-bearers of civilization become more local than the Indians when it comes to getting things done.
This one riles me the most.
"Trotz professionellen Top-Managements, hat man doch immer wieder mit inkompetenten Hilfskräften zu tun, die keine Ahnung haben"
The author says despite professional top management, you have to keep repeating things to get things done from incompetent support staff whom he calls clueless.
A few weeks ago, I met a photographer from Vienna who is heavily in debt in Austria and works for a magazine on its last legs. She's here to live the life equivalent of a British Raj officer and has the same usual racist complaints about local men.
She says they all look at her as a white chick, a commodity. She even has issues with her assistant. who she claims hits on her. Funny enough she shares a flat with her assistant as a paying guest. And the assistant is proud of hanging out with drug addicts and assorted spoilt brats. Maybe the Austrians haven't heard the proverb that "birds of a feather flock together."
The point is that you can't pay peanuts and get decent talent. Not in Europe and not in India.
It's amazing how so many European economies are on the verge of collapse and are floating because of IMF bailouts. Unemployment is rampant in the continent and so is racism often institutionalized. I think many European countries realise that they have major issues sans their colonies. How can you stay rich, when you can't exploit people in Africa and Asia?
Going back to my friend who wrote this piece, he's an adorable young man with some nice ideas and I wouldn't like to say anything bad about him. But I am sure that he enjoys the security of the German language to express his true views on India, a country to which he has tied his financial fortunes to.
All I can tell my foreign friends is, if you can't take the heat, leave the kitchen
very racist of you. I am appalled!
ReplyDeleteNice of you to call me a racist while hiding behind the cloak of anonymity
ReplyDelete