Delhi Trials and Triumphs

We have a lovely apartment. But things do go wrong quite easily and quite quickly. The basic quality of fitting out and finessing of apartments here is probably not as high. Things kind of wobble a bit sooner, bulbs blow out. But we manage it very well. We did an annual maintenance agreement with a company called Formula One. When anything goes wrong in our apartment, we call them and they came and fix it in 24 hours.

My children came from a very protected environment. We lived in a lovely village outside Zurich. This is their entry on to the world stage, so to speak. Life is kind of laid bare in India. On a typical journey to school, you’ll pass by cows and you’ll see beggars. They felt quite shocked when they first saw all this. But now they are quite nonchalant.

My wife and children have got a completely packed schedule of activities — Bollywood dancing, horse-riding, tennis, the list goes on. Here we get to do lots of things that we wouldn’t ever be able to do in Europe or even afford to because of lack of time or cost. Where else could you rent an elephant for your daughter’s birthday party, for instance?

The work environment here is very different. When employees in relatively junior positions are forced to take a call that they may not feel comfortable doing themselves, there is a cultural tendency to go up the chain to somebody at a greater level of authority.
 
We probably have a more serious working environment here than what we have elsewhere.

In Europe, you have a lot of chit chat in the office. You never had a sense of different kind of rankings within the hierarchy. People here are a lot more careful about who they laugh and joke with and what they say. There just tends to be a much greater respect for different levels within the hierarchy. When I came up to somebody’s desk, they would stand up. It was a bit strange for me. The challenge for me is to be me or allowing myself to be me. I like to walk around the office and laugh and joke with people. I try to make sure that I go to people rather than summoning them to me. My own way of working is different from hierarchical style — it took a while for people to get comfortable with that.

I often have what I call ‘Indian moments’: When I am at the airport I usually grab a coffee — a small AmericanO — from the Café Coffee Day in Arrivals. The other day I went up to the coffee stand and asked for it. The guy said, “Unfortunately, today we have just large-sized cups. I can only sell you a large coffee.” I said, “Surely you can put a small coffee in a large cup.” He said that his system wouldn’t allow that. It took me insisting that he call his manager, followed by a three to four minute internal discussion for him to relent and eventually sell me a small coffee in a big cup — I often have to challenge, push and not accept things at face value to get what I want.
 
I haggle for things more than I did before. I often take autos around my neighbourhood or on longer trips like from Old Delhi to Vasant Vihar. When they quote a high price, I walk away and go to another auto driver. I keep doing that till I get the price I want. Sometimes I call somebody and ask, “I am standing by an auto right now and he is charging me Rs. 200 from Old Delhi to Vasant Vihar. What do you think?”

I roll a lot more with the punches now with some aspects of day to day life. When I am in traffic jams for instance. Or getting used to the fact that public spaces here are not as well maintained as in Europe. You just get used to it and accept it. It all kind of blends into the background.

In that sense I have become Indian — I don’t always like it, but it is what it is. That’s one of the things in my acclimatisation. And it’s a small price to pay for a truly incredible experience — in the most positive sense of the word!

(As told to Neelima Mahajan-Bansal)