My friend Arjun pointed out to me that Indians view this country as “Mother India.” The first time I visited India, in early 2005, I had what I suppose is a typical reaction for Americans – I could just not believe how many people there were everywhere! As someone pointed out, India has 1.2 billion souls – four times the population of the U.S. – in an area 1/7th the size of the U.S. So everywhere I turn I see not only people, but many times as many people as experience leads me to expect.
We depart from Delhi thru the old train station (not the new) and as our driver negotiates with porters (to set their fee for carrying our luggage and loading it onto the train), we await the conclusion of the exchange. He dismisses the porters who want 500 Rupees, and negotiates with another for 350. He is successful, and our bags are loaded onto a cart. Tied to the rickety cart with a single piece of twine, they perilously work their way toward the very long train. There are people seated on the ground everywhere – I presume waiting for their train to arrive. As we begin to pass the cars of our train, we pass compartment after compartment filled with six or eight, sitting side-by-side (as they will sit all night). We arrive at our car, where the names of the passengers and their assigned compartments are posted on the side of the car. Somewhat to the surprise of our retinue, our names are there. I have done this only once before and it worked just fine then too. The compartments contain sleeping berths – 4 per compartment – and we have 5 travelers so we split into 4 and 1 and stow our bags.
As I was the single, I ended up with a compartment-mate, and as on my previous trip, he was pleasantly talkative. A manager for Proctor & Gamble, who had studied engineering, but decided that he’d better also get an M.B.A. degree because “If I became an engineer, it might take me 30 years to work my way up to management, whereas if I got my degree right away, I would have a head start.” We had a long talk about many things Indian. One of the Indians who worked for me at LeapFrog – who also happens to be a very smart guy – had similarly decided that his route would be directly into management, and last I heard from him he had enrolled in an M.B.A. program in India. I have not heard from him for a year or so, but I suspect that’s natural as he also got married (the typical arranged marriage) as well as entering the M.B.A. program. We talked at length about the interdependency that India and the U.S. now have, which is in contrast to the cool stand-off of the Cold War era. Economics bring closer ties.
Of course, the typical American’s direct contact with India these days probably consists more of the occasional call-center encounter. All of this is highly dependent upon underwater fibre-optic cables. And when one looks into that, one realizes how thin a thread ties us together.
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