A Client Visit - Nothing routine about this one!

It was a client visit. It was also a one in a million kind of experience... something that is not likely to happen to the same person twice. It was also murphy at his glorious best. So, without much further ado, I am going to launch into a chronological description of what turned out to be an extremely eventful site visit.

The place: the Bandra-Worli Sea Link - one of mumbai's largest infrastructure projects and something that many thousands of mumbaikars are looking forward to.

It began like any other client visit - with a drive from office... not to Nariman Point (which is usually the end point of many a client visit) but to the Bandra Reclamation area. Across the bay is being built the Bandra-Worli Sea Link. The builders, HCC, generously consented to having a whole lot of us from the agency over and showing us the sea link (which is nearing completion). Reaching the Bandra end of the construction site, we headed straight to the exhibition center, where after much tom foolery on our part, we were taken through the entire construction process as well as a corporate film (to help "understand" the brand better) . We then headed for the part that most of us had toodled along to the site for in the first place - the ride to the actual sea link and if possible a climb to the top of the tower of the cable stayed portion of the bridge.

Well we got to the bridge alright. And here began the awesome part. The view from the sea link is just amazing - the sea stretches out to the horizon on one side and on the other side, across the bay is the coastline of Mumbai with its fishing villages nestling between posh, high-rise buildings. The view got even better as five of us got into a lift and began the slow, 100 meter journey up to the towers from which 600 meters of the 4.7 km long sea link is suspended.

As we rose up, we saw more and more of Mumbai... all the way up to Malabar Hills on the southern side and the Andheri coastline on the northern side. We then alighted on the walkway between the two towers that hold the bridge up. If the view from the sealink was amazing, this was simply breathtaking. Looking down, the waves made it seem as though the bridge was swinging gently on its 140 taut steel cables. Our excitement reached its peak when we realised that helicopters and aircrafts were flying beneath us and not above us!

And then Murphy struck!!! Having dropped us off at the walkway, the lift was on its way back down to bring up the rest of our colleagues so that we could have an inspiring brainstorming session right up there on the top. However, the lift obviously had other ideas as it chose its descent as the appropriate time to get stuck, robbing those standing below of the amazing view from the top and leaving us on top with a mind blowing view but not much else.

Many frantic calls later, we decided to make our way down a construction stairway with only fishing nets and ricketty railings to aid our 100 meter descent. Suffice to say that we reached the bridge again. Suffice also to say that this was product testing and brand experience at its very best - terms that have come to mean our living for those of us who work in an ad agency.

"Shady"

English is a funny language and its words even funnier. Imagine you are walking on the road with a friend and (s)he says to you, "Let's go to a shady place." While you may not exactly slap the other person, the thing that pops into your head when you hear that is, "ewww that sounds so gross." And it does too. 

Now imagine this: You are climbing up a mountain (or should I say trekking). You are walking on rocks, through under growth and there are spiders, crabs and insects all around you. The sun chooses this very day to be at its sunshiny best and is beating down upon you. No matter how you twist and turn, it is sure to catch your back, your head, or some other part of you. Beads of sweat drip down your face and soon your clothes will feel like you went for a swim wearing them. 

When someone now says to you, "Let's find a shady place", believe you me, you are going to jump at the opportunity and try to accomplish the task in a jiffy. And if the other person leads you to one, you'll thank and bless them. 

Such are the vagaries of the language brought to India by the British.

In Love Again :)

Lush green, rolling hills, paddy fields and gurgling water. I came to Mumbai expecting weekends full of malls, lunches and some lazy days at home. Instead I've rediscovered the excitement of exploring virgin lands; of doing things that scare me and yet leave a sense of achievement at the end of it all; of breathing in sharp, pure and pristine air; of feeling like I am touching the clouds; of the sudden brightness in the midst of rolling mist.

Two fun filled weekends - one on a tough yet fulfilling trek to Harishchandragarh, the other waterfall rappelling - have brought joy, peace, and excitement. They've been an opportunity to be with myself, to be away from the same old stories and gossip, to find tranquility within, to discover what the body and mind can do when they have to, to break the monotony of buildings, trains, traffic, and everything else that comes with staying in a city.

I've fallen in love with the lush, serene landscapes, the soft gurgling of the water, and its capacity to hurt, heal and pamper. I've fallen in love with the idea that I can be by myself or with people. I've fallen in love with that moment when you realise that your life is only in your hands; in love with the moment when you know what you have to do without having known it a second before. I've fallen in love with the softness and harshness that nature can offer and in love with the human body and mind's ability to face it, flow with it, and become one with it. I've fallen in love with this surprise that I have discovered for myself.

Foreign Education In India

http://www.thehindu.com/2008/07/15/stories/2008071555180800.htm

This is an interesting article analysing the request by foreign university (and higher education providers) to be allowed to set up campuses in India. The writer points out some of the obvious flaws of opening access to primarily private institutes. These include:

The fact that these universities would only offer programs that are in high demand in the market and would not invest in research intensive courses that might not generate as much profit;
They might not be able to provide access to underserved sections of society as they will be interested only in making profit and not offering equitable access;
That it would be difficult to regulate the quality of education that these institutions would provide and that it might not be the same as what they provide in their home countries.

All valid concerns but a little pointless in my opinion. If one looks at the larger context of the state of Education and especially higher education in India, then it is apparent that the government does not even have the funds to cater to the streams that are in demand. The author of the article himself admits that hardly 10% of the relevant age group attend institutes of higher education. Given this scenario, to me it seems that it is better to let private universities address the market demand. This way, the government can focus on sectors that might not generate as much profit.

Coming to the second point, of providing access to underserved sections of society, it is first important to have the capacity to serve a populace as large as ours. Second, once that capacity exists, it will distribute itself across the socio-economic spectrum to ensure its own survival. Yes, quality will suffer but this is where the government will be able to pitch in once the pressure to provide for the basic infrastructure is off its shoulders. Also, even with an entirely Indian system of education, the government has not really been able to ensure quality except in the few IITs and IIMs. Most Indian universities hardly provide even the basic infrastructure required for higher education. So, that is hardly a valid reason to refuse access. If anything, mechanisms need to evolved to ensure a basic minimum standard is met and this criteria would need to apply to Indian as well as foreign based universities.

All in all, given the overall scenario of paucity of funds as well as infrastructure in the education sector, it seems to me to be better to allow foreign players (after appropriate screening) to set up campuses to cater to the demand that is emerging and is only likely to climb higher.

Paradoxes

It is the 21st century and we do live in what we like to think of as a liberal world. I for one, have what may be a bad habit. I generalise based on the few people that I know and the few experiences that I have had in my rather young life. While it works for me lots of times, sometimes I am rudely woken up. I imagine all of upper-middle class, educated, working, young Indians to be like me and my friends. After all, why not? Brought up in large cosmopolitan cities, in english speaking schools, college educated, working in progressive industries such as the media and advertising.

And then an encounter surprises me, delights me with the diversity and makes me ponder about the paradoxes that exist in the seemingly globalised parts of this country. And so let me narrate a small incident.

I was in office in a meeting along with my senior planner with a sales representative from a TV channel. She (the sales rep) was narrating the plot of an upcoming serial to us. She got to the crux of the plot where she essentially wanted to say that the younger daughter-in-law was made to sleep with her older brother-in-law to produce a heir for the family. What amazed me was that she could not get herself to say the word "sex" or even the phrase "sleep with" and finally resorted to "mate".

It made me think about the paradoxes that exist in India - the confluence (or confusion) between tradition and modernity; the tense relationship that exists between the two that often explodes in various forms - debates on censorship, vandalism on Valentine's day, a march for Gay rights, a controversial re-writing of religious myths etc. It reminds me that Liberalised India is still young, that we are still gestating, that not everyone subscribes to a modernity that is essential Europe and America inspired.

It also amazes me that we are able to survive as a country with so many contradictions, paradoxes and differences; that we have room for everything without breaking apart at the seams.