Business as usual

From the day that I landed in Brisbane, people around me started asking me the same question…

“So, how do you like it here in Australia?”

Sometimes, it took on other forms…..

“How different do you find it here from India?”

or

“So, do you like it better here than India?”

or even….

“Is it less crowded / polluted / chaotic / beurocratic here than it is India?”

There has never been an easy answer. How do you explain to someone who has never seen more than five people on his street, without experiencing a panic attack, that you can find peace even among the milling crowds? And how do you enlighten the person who is used to the straight forward above-the-board dealings of the west, that there is indeed a method in all the madness in India?

We recently shifted offices at work, and that meant a spate of tasks like moving internet connections, telephone lines and re-directing mail. All procedures documented by the telephone service provider (a public sector company, I might add) were followed by us to the last “T”, to ensure that the move was glitch-free. A week prior to the scheduled date of shifting, they ‘accidentally’ disconnected all our phone lines and then charged us a reconnection fee to get communication going, 24 hours later. We spent the entire day dealing with anxious clients, suppliers and employees who were unable to get in touch with us.

At such a time, I wonder how things would have been handled back home. No one would recall what the exact procedure was to request a move. Someone deputed to ‘liase’ with the government departments would pop down to the telephone exchange for a friendly cup of tea with the requisite officer. Over a relaxed cuppa or two, they would exchange some gossip and grease money. The job would be done efficiently. No business lost, no angst and most definitely no inefficiency.

Recently, a little cart selling the most divine coffees, opened shop outside university. In almost no time, all the definitive coffee drinkers were seen milling outside the tiny coffee shop. After a few days of friendly smiles, we once got talking to the proprietor. He told us how, he had spent three years chasing legislators and authorities to grant him the permission to open this little cart. He had extended all sorts of favors in lieu of the permit – in the form of gifts, financial and even sexual favors (so he claimed….I’m not making it up!!) to get the task done! Back home, the correct payoffs would have been made and treated as cash outflows of the business. It would have been incorporated while evaluating the viability of the project.

My Italian-Australian friend Steven, often rues at the fact that bus drivers in India do not talk to passengers, wish them the time of the day and give them directions or road assistance. He says that in Australia, the driver would lose his job if he was not friendly enough. But then, I wonder how that bus driver would cope with the teeming bus loads of people – overflowing from the doors and oozing out from the windows, “adjusting” to accommodate that ‘one’ more office goer in its midst. The mind boggles. I was also pretty sure that should someone ask for directions in a bus load of people, a minimum of three random passengers will pipe up and volunteer assistance.

And so I come back to the opening idea of this little piece. It is hard to explain all of this to someone who has not lived in India. Sometimes though, it is harder to explain this to someone who is from India. Extracting yourself from a situation allows you to see the bigger picture. And while the more sparsely populated western world affords you much more space and infrastructure, it is not always the most effective structure. It is hard to appreciate the slow machinery that cranks and groans as it supports a billion Indian hearts (and a few miscreants as well!). And yet, when it floods, or it riots, or the quakes strike – the common man and the system display why no other culture can replicate the complex, tiered, interlinked structure that is India.

In the words of my father – corruption is everywhere… the only difference lies between an honest crook and a dishonest one! Recognize that… and its business as usual!