Greetings from Bangalore! First of all, I’d like to apologize for the photo-free post. Haven’t had a chance to take many photos yet… Details to follow…
I arrived in Bangalore a little after midnight Tuesday morning. I went outside to find the driver assigned to pick me up from the airport only to be greeted by, literally, hundreds of drivers, all holding signs carrying the name of some Westerner who worked for some multinational corporation. It was quite a scene. The drivers were practically falling over each other to make their sign the most prominent in the crowd. After a few minutes of slowly walking down the line, I found the gentleman who was assigned to pick up “Shawn Doffy”. He grabbed my luggage for me, escorted me out on the street where I waited for him to retrieve the car. After about ten minutes, he arrived through the mass of people, traffic, and blaring horns to take me to the hotel. The drive was uneventful as we sped through the dark streets of Bangalore. Conversation was limited, as he only spoke a little English and the little he did speak was overpowered by a thick accent.
The hotel isn’t bad. I stayed up for about an hour or so getting settled in and jumping online to check some email. The hotel offers wireless access but the connection is painfully slow. This will likely impair my ability to upload photos during my stay. I’ve decided that I will likely put the photos on my computer and upload them from the office. Anyway, after about an hour of checking email, I went to sleep.
I woke up around 6am to get ready to go to the office and meet my other coworkers who had arrived the previous day. We had breakfast at a small restaurant behind the hotel and then met our driver out front.
Upon arrival at the office, we were greeted by our Indian colleagues, some of whom we had met during their recent visit to the US, and we were shown to a conference room which was to act as our office for our stay. A waiter promptly came into the room to offer us coffee, soft drinks, and water. Unfortunately, the coffee cups were way too small to feed the caffeine habits of these Americans, so we certainly called on him more than once for refills.
Most of the day was taken up with meetings. The meetings were primarily meet-and-greets designed to introduce ourselves to our Indian colleagues and to let them know what kinds of services our department provides. I was fine until the last meeting of the day where I started to feel the effects of jet lag.
After our time at the office was complete, we headed back to the hotel to change and drop off our bags, then we headed back out to meet some local coworkers at Mainland China, a fantastic Chinese restaurant. We spent the evening chatting about the social web, drinking wine and beer, and eating.
I finally returned to my hotel room at around 11pm. I got online briefly but was way too tired to process the few photos that I had taken that evening. I needed sleep.
A few initial thoughts from my first day…
This is a remarkable city. You can almost see the growth of the city take place right before your eyes. The streets are jampacked with everything from cars to overcrowded buses to motorcycles carrying entire families to stray dogs and cattle roaming freely. Really… just a remarkable sight. You almost get the sense that this is where it’s all happening. I’m not sure you can see both the good and bad of globalization in such close proximity to each other anywhere else. One moment you’re passing by modern office parks decorated with fountains, elaborate corporate art and inhabited by multi-billion dollar companies such as Intel, Cisco, and Accenture. Crowds of well-to-do young people are streaming in and out of their offices, chatting and texting on mobile phones, and experiencing a level of wealth their parents couldn’t even fathom just a generation ago.
The next moment, however, you’re driving by small villages made out of cardboard boxes, scrap metal, and concrete blocks. Kids walking barefoot collecting garbage, oblivious to the hustle, bustle, and wealth just meters away.
I wonder, though, if they really are oblivious. It makes me think of the famous saying often parroted by proponents of deregulation, the free market, and globalization:
“A rising tide lifts all boats.”
I generally believe that’s true. After all, I tend to be a big believer in the benefits of globalization and the free market. However, there should be a second part to that saying:
“A rising tide lifts all boats. Those without boats, drown.”
Of course, one could make the argument that, if globalization never existed and if companies had never come to places like this, then, not only would these people be where they are anyway, but more people might be in the same predicament. So why not help some of the population, instead of none? That’s a valid argument. Or, perhaps these people, as terrible as their situation may seem, are better off than they were ten years ago. I don’t know. But, I can’t help but think that there has to be some underlying tension. How can so many people be deprived of so much while their neighbor is deprived of so little and their not be any social consequences?
Look at the United States where the contrast is not nearly as stark. Many people have lost jobs due to companies hiring cheaper labor overseas. Granted, this is often exaggerated because of the emotional nature of the problem but, regardless, there are undoubtedly some people who have been “left behind” on the globalization train. On the other side of that, many more people, in my humble opinion, have benefited from globalization, in terms of lower prices for consumers and so on. But, even though those that have been “left behind” constitute a far lower portion of the population than those who have benefited, one only has to watch Lou Dobbs, or a few political ads, to see how this tension has worked its way into our social and political dialogue. So how does this tension manifest itself here, where the contrast is much, much greater and where the number of those left behind compared to those that have benefited may actually be proportionally opposite? Can it continue for much longer before there is some backlash? Can India continue to grow at such an incredible pace if that growth is so lopsided? Or would it be better to grow slower but more equitably? I don’t know. Whatever the answer is, as more countries enter the globalization realm, I think we’ll see this question become one of the most critical challenges that all countries will need to address before they can fully embrace their new global supply chain.
Food for thought anyway.
We have no concrete plans tonight after work so we’ll be wandering the streets and taking photos. I hope to have some uploaded tomorrow morning.
Tags:
bangalore,
india,
travel 
