I personally enjoy a little culture shock and maybe that is why I like to travel so much. There is just so much more to visiting a place that words and pictures cannot always express.

The traffic in India is real life bumper cars- picture 4 lanes with 2 in each direction where literally anything goes. You want to drive you two wheeler in between buses- Go ahead. You want to drive in the middle of the road- sure why not? Whole families fit on motorcycles or scooters. I have seen as many as four or five people just on one. And the honking? Never stops.  Yet, there is a strange calm in the madness. It is hard to explain unless you have experienced it yourself.

The Alliance Business School has been a blessing for our group and they have made us feel so welcome. Dr. Singh and Padmini have made sure that any of our groups needs are met. We have had classes with some of the brightest business professionals in India. We have formed friendships with six intelligent, friendly, and helpful students- Priyanka, Amrita, Vidushi, Rajiv, Rajat, and Manoj- our future business partners!

One of the most important and touching visits was when we visited Narayana Hrudayalaya hospital. Thousands of children have had heart surgery and a little girl had her conjoined headless twin removed.

See <http://www.india-forums.com/news/article.asp?id=64284>

We had a presentation with Dr. Hegde and then we walked the floor where the children recouperate and we were moved by the amount of children who were successfully operated on. We were supposed to meet Dr. Shetty who was Mother Theresa’s cardiac surgeon for five years. His work with her changed his life and he became a pioneer for low cost heart surgery. His project is called the Integrated Telecordiology and Telehealth Project (ITTP). The beneficiaries of ITTP are the poor families mostly from the rural parts of India. Indians have a high genetic risk for heart disease and for families that live in rural villages one child with heart disease can affect the family income. He uses remote stations with portable ECG machines that are set up in various parts of not only India but also the world. With these stations he is able to communicate with his patients and the doctors or technicians in their local area. This is called telecardiology. The families of the poorest patients pay what they can and the rest is covered by ITTP. Shetty is funded by other patients he has operated on and from donations from individuals and organizations. Dr. Shetty works 14 hour days six days a week. He and his staff have performed more than 17,000 surgeries that saved lives.

Unfortunately, we were not able to meet Dr. Shetty because he was in surgery for quite a while. Yet, just walking through the hospital, sitting in his office, and watching the video to describe his work and mission was moving and awe inspiring. If you are interested in more information about Dr. Shetty or making a donation to the ITTP: email: info@hrudayalaya.com or devishetty@hrudayalaya.com website: www.hrudayalaya.com

Many have a stereotype of India as a land full of spiritual guides, temples, Buddhists, and yoga sessions which is obviously not true. Average Indian is moderately religious, and hasn’t read any of the scriptures. There are less than 1% of Buddhists. The other Hindus (83%), Muslim (11%), Christians (3%), and Sikhs (2%) co-exist peacefully, aside from 3 explosions by our apartment. IT company campuses have more security than a prison, with checkpoints, barbed wires, and metal detectors on the outside, but beautiful on the inside:
 (Infosys HQ)

I have never traveled with a group of strangers before. It is stunning how close you can get in a week. As diverse as our group is, we are connected by our common passion for global business, other cultures, and search for adventure. It blows my mind that all people don’t go on trips like this, especially when in school. At no time you learn and evlolve as much as when you travel.

We meet and network with the most intelligent, famous, and successful people in India, who don’t just give us textbook lectures, but rather advices for life drawn from business perspective. Our local business school is in top 5 in India, and is more difficult to get into than any Ivy League school. All the friends that we’ve made from there are 21 or 22 years old finishing their MBA. None of them work, and most have never worked. Everybody’s tuition is paid by parents. There are no scholarships, financial aid, or loans. After graduating with a MBA, most will get a job starting $15-25K/year.

Girls will have about 2-4 years to get married, guys – 2-6 years. Most will be married by their parents. Usually a dad will place a classified ad like the one in the picture or find a potential spouse online. Dad will meet with him/her. If everything goes smoothly, the families will meet, and finally the guy and the girl will meet for 10 minutes to see if they are compatible. At which point most will get engaged. My guess the conversation goes something like this: “You like movies? I like movies. You like hip hop? I like hip hop, too! Let’s get married.” 6-8 months later they get married. In lower classes, son’s family will often ask for a specific dowry (car, $5K, etc.), which is now illegal. There are also rare dark sides of dowry in rural and poor communities, like dowry death. Where a bride is either driven to suicide, or killed by the husband or husband’s family due to insufficient dowry. Therefore male offsprings are preferred. Finding out baby’s gender before birth is illegal. If the husband dies, the widow is considered unlucky, who drove her husband to death. Her bangles are removed, bindi (dot) wiped off, like in this ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=002AY4cb5uw

Still, better than it used to be. Most of these traditions are disappearing in cities and with new generation. 50% of Indian population is 25 or younger. 

As much as I like Indian food, I can’t eat it 3 times a day, every day. All cuisine is vegetarian and chicken. Rarely lamb. All of our meals look like the picture on the left. With no beef anywhere and cows walking everywhere, I want to run up and chew on one for a little. That would be frowned upon by the locals. 

Government defines poverty not by income, but by daily calories consumed. Separation of classes is immense. You can see mansions and slums next to each other on one street. Poor are not outraged and wealthy are not compassionate; “they understand and accept their place in life, even if it is not easy to bear, due to their strong belief in karma”. Most middle and upper class households have servant(s) living with them, who clean, cook, wash, shop, iron, etc. Ours (we call him “Buddy”) even shows us magic tricks. Some Westerners see it as exploitation, locasls view it as helping the needy. Like child labor, locals see it as a better alternative to begging or stealing:

What else….. Guys usually hold hands when walking down the street, while couples will never show any signs of affection in public. Kissing was recently allowed in Indian movies. Forget nudity. Driving in India is a whole different topic. Let’s just say driving a bus or a truck is a 2 person job. One turning the wheel, pressing pedals, the other communicating with other drivers and running outside the vehicle to make sure it fits through the streets. All vehicles always honk.

These are some unique aspects of Indian society. Otherwise, the educated youth are just like us – fun, friendly, social and intriguing They have the same interests, problems, goals in life, and don’t poop in the street. 

Reposted from http://krakadil.livejournal.com

To experience the excitement of Bangalore traffic on a more intimate level, a group of us took auto rickshaws back to our living quarters after shopping the other day – a few short clips of our ride will be posted shortly.  Of the five rickshaws that we took, only two found there way back to the service apartments without much trouble.  Two others dropped their passengers several blocks away.  Our driver tried to get us to get out before we got to our destination, but because we had not walked around and did not know our way around we REFUSED to get out until we knew where we were.

Vicki