A peculiar ... preference

We had a networking event organized at work today. A certain bigshot from upper management came and talked about career growth etc. It was a very motivational talk. The guy was White.
But what caught my eye was his wife. She was Asian (I think Thai). That's not the first White manager in the company I saw with an Asian wife. One of the White managers who works in the Pune office has an Asian wife too. And when I asked around, turned out there were a lot more. Now these don't seem like the type of modern couples that come from liberal colleges, where race is not an issue when you're seeking out your life partner. If that were the case then I'd see more Black wives, or Hispanic wives. But these are predominatly Asian women. It almost seems like you need to be married to an Asian woman to advance in this company!

The mystery of the missing guest

We were expecting a very important guest from the US at work today.
There had been plans in place for ages now, presentations were
readied, labs were shined up. And out of the blue, about 30 mins
before we were to meet him, we get an email informing us that the
entire program has been scrapped. This was a big blow since apart from
impressing him, we actually needed to impress on him some of the needs
of our team here.

Soon I heard from someone in the office what had happened. The guy
arrived at the Mumbai airport and waited for two hours. No one was
there to receive him and he got pissed off and went back to NJ. I was
shocked that someone would behave in such an immature fashion. But
soon after that we heard the real reason. Apparently there was some
problem with his visa and he couldn't be let into India. He'll be
returning next week with all the proper documents.

The thing with the first story I heard made me wonder how these rumors
get started. I know the person in the story chain about two steps
above me and for that person to have either made up the story or
passed on an unsubstantiated rumor is just stupid. But I guess it
takes all types.

On the other hand, I felt good on hearing that someone got sent back
from India for improper documentation. I've heard plenty of stories
like this about people going to the US and being stranded for lack of
documentation and now we get to impose our will on other nationals.
Very cool.

A different kind of colonization

Whenever I watch Gandhi, or for that matter when I read about pre-Independence India, I was always surprised by the fact that there were a lot of Indian soldiers and policemen who were employed by the British. "How can Indians not just stand by while people of a different nation were subjugating their countrymen, and not just stand by but actually help beat up the Indians, or fire at them etc?" I wondered.

 

When I landed in Pune three weeks ago, my boss and another co-worker (both White Americans) came to pick me up. It was day of the immersion of Ganesh statues that day and the roads were pretty clogged up. They managed to get to the airport well, but apparently got stuck earlier in the day. Even as they were driving me to my guesthouse, we almost got trapped in a small street, but luckily our destination was behind us and we managed to get to the guesthouse.

 

As they were giving me direction to get to work the next day, the co-worker said, "It shouldn't be too hard I imagine, we should be done with this Ganesh crap by then."

 

That stung me. And a part of me wanted to lecture him on respecting the local customs, and at the very least, not to express such sentiments out loud. But I chickened out since my boss was right there and I didn't want to create an issue even before my first day at work. So I let it pass. And I felt like crap for doing that. No matter how much of an inconvenience it is, Ganesh Chathurti is a big festival in India. It was popularized during the Independence struggle and played a big role in creating a feeling of community in the country. Not to mention the religious sanctity of the festival. And I let an outsider pass a negative comment on the festival without reprimanding him because I wanted to keep my job.

 

Of course, this brought on a big internal discussion about foreign investments and the way we are ignoring the cultural erosion that's a consequence of this. At what cost are we creating jobs and improving the economy? After seeing myself stay silent, it's not hard to imagine Indian soldiers and policemen wearing British uniforms and beating up their countrymen. The bottomline is money and everyone has a selling point.