Author: mac131

LECTURES
Prof. J. Philip provided an introduction to the management education available in India. He noted that while 200,000 MBAs are earned each year in India, only 50,000 or so are good MBAs; thus, it can be assumed that not all schools provide quality education. The Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) are the most difficult schools to gain acceptance to, but afford the best education to students. Additionally, Prof. Philip remarked that all good business schools in India are fully-residential, take a lot of interest in total job placement after graduation, and strive to teach students to work ethically in the business environment.
Information on the current Indian economic scene was presented by Prof. C.P. Ravindranathan. The American perception of the Indian economy is that there is steady growth, an increasing middle class, and a lower cost of living. India is expected to experience an 8.5% growth increase for 2010-11, second only to China. A target of $200 billion in exports for 2010-11 may be achieved; $176.5 billion was the 2009-10 total. Some of the main concerns today include bringing down inflation, tightening the monetary policy, and strengthening the exchange rate of the Rupee. The Indian government issued a series of three stimulus measures to counter the effects of the global economic slowdown; this was done through tax reductions, increased government spending, and infrastructure development. The primary growth drivers for the next two years are expected to be domestic consumption, outsourcing, and capital expenditure.
A former employee of HCL, Prof. Atish Dasgupta based his HR lecture on his knowledge of HCL’s practices. Vineet Nayar, CEO of HCL, transformed HR with his “Employees First, Customers Second,” approach; the premise of this philosophy is that the employees will take care of their customers if they are well-taken care of first and that the power set forth by the CEO needs to be distributed downward. Notable HR applications at HC

FRIDAY 8/6: Our plan for Goa was pretty much just to relax a bit before starting classes with Dr. Vijay in Bangalore. This morning, we woke up and had breakfast at the hotel restaurant, then tried to find an internet cafe. We walked to several places (all the while avoiding TONS of cow patties) that had “internet” signs, but they all said their internet was down. The beaches were much cleaner than in Mumbai, but the water was way too rough to get in. We spent some time taking goofy pictures of Steve acting girly, Valerie made friends with a dog that followed us around for awhile, and Sara’s camera got wet in the sea and stopped working. There were several tent-like beach huts in one area, but it didn’t really seem like anyone lived there. After walking along the beach in the direction of the hotel, we found what we thought was a path that would lead to the main road, but we ended up in someone’s backyard, where a huge herd of cattle were resting. Deciding that it was probably not the greatest idea to be trespassing, we walked back down the beach to the path we originally walked along. This wouldn’t have been such a big deal, but it was HOTTTTTTTTTT and we were thirsty! On the way back to the hotel, we found an internet cafe that actually had working internet!!!! I spent about an hour there sending emails and chatting online and it only cost me about 55 rupees (~$1.25). A block or so down from the internet cafe was a grocery store; I bought ice tea, mentos, a box of chocky krocky cereal, and some sort of Cadbury cookies…that stuff only lasted a few minutes 🙂 By the time I made it back to the hotel, I was DRENCHED in sweat (and looked really gross!). Sara, Steve, and I jumped in the pool and swam for an hour or two. Later on, we had dinner at the hotel and made friends with our waiter. All of us tried the local Goan alcohol, cashew feni….it’s meant to be sipped, but Steve took it as a shot….After dinner, we relaxed in our rooms (we watched India’s Got Talent and Whose Line Is It Anyway?) and did some laundry, then had a few drinks at the hotel before going out to a karaoke bar Steve found. We were the ONLY people at the bar…and there was no karaoke….but the owner was very friendly and gave each of us some flowers and hot peppers (which probably should’ve been nibbled on, but Steve ate the whole thing in one bite and instantly regretted his second bad decision of the day). Back at the hotel, I went to bed while the others stayed up and talked for awhile….at some point in time, the security guards came and shut both of our doors (our rooms were across the hall from each other), thus locking Steve out of the room we shared. Instead of knocking on the door to get in, Steve tried bad decision number 3 of the night, and climbed out a hallway window, onto a ledge, and around to our balcony, only to find that I had closed and locked the balcony doors.

SATURDAY 8/7: I think I was the only one who didn’t have too rough of a morning 🙂 At breakfast, there were A TON of people (we were pretty much the only people at the hotel the previous morning). We packed our bags and left them in storage at the hotel, then went back to the internet cafe and grocery store from the day before to get some snacks for our 16-hour train ride to Bangalore. There wasn’t enough time to do any sightseeing (we had wanted to rent scooters to ride to an old fort), so we went back to the hotel and sat around the lobby (and had our pictures taken by all of the businessmen from breakfast) until it was time to get a cab to take us to the train station. I’m really glad we left early for the train station…it was a pretty long ride and once we got there we didn’t really know what to do…..We didn’t have to check in or anything….but I knew we were on the right platform…we just didn’t know where to go from there! Once the train arrived, we had 4 minutes to ask someone where we were supposed to be and get there! Luckily, we were standing near our sleeper car and didn’t have to rush too much…As mentioned before, we were going to be on this train for 16 hours straight…..long story short, the 3-tier air-conditioned sleeper car was NOT what we imagined….I had been on several trains in Italy where there were several little compartments within each car that had doors that locked so you could sleep and have some privacy….but not in India….essentially, there were 96ish people crammed into each car (no comparments)…imagine a bunch of little cubicles with 3 planks of wood (each about 2 feet wide and 5.5 feet long) attached to the wall with about 2 feet of head room in between each plank….and the same arrangement right beside you (with a 10 inch aisle space in between bunks)….throw in a bunch of screaming babies, greasy feeling blankets, squat toilets, and food for sale that you can’t buy and you’ve got one hell of a journey! After the first few hours I was ready to jump off the train and walk to the nearest airport, but then I took some dramamine and passed out for 12 hours 🙂 When I woke up, we were almost to Bangalore to begin our adventure with Dr. Vijay!!!!

Tuesday 8/3: Our time in Kathmandu was AWESOME!!!!!!!!! The temples we visited, our mountain flight, the bungy adventure, seeing random animals in the street, eating food (lots of food!), and lounging around the hotel are all great memories 🙂 Leaving Hotel Ganesh Himal was really sad! The staff was so friendly and always helpful. One of the front desk girls gave each of us a scarf and wished us luck before heading for the airport 😀 The Kathmandu airport had the most security checks of any airport I’ve ever been through…we literally went through at least a dozen bags searches/metal detectors before boarding the plane for Mumbai. The 2.5 hour flight went smoothly and quickly (especially for Sara, who managed to snag a first class seat…not fair!). We got a pre-paid taxi at the airport…an OLD (like really really really OLD and RICKETY) taxi…pretty sure it was a 50-year old black and yellow Ford Ambassador that rumbled and bounced along the street….we looked super classy pulling into the JW Marriott (a VERY nice 5-star hotel)! After some “issues”, it was decided that Steve and I would stay at the JW for our two nights and Mumbai and Sara and Valerie were going to find a hotel downtown. Steve spent the night relaxing in the sauna and I pretty much just fell asleep watching Indian tv 🙂 We also had some very expensive sandwiches at the hotel….

Wednesday, 8/4: Steve and I woke up feeling refreshed (those beds were SO COMFY!!!) and headed out to find a cab. Our cab driver totally ripped us off and charged us double what it should have cost to get from our hotel to the Gateway of India. En route to downtown, we saw the 20-some story Tata house!!! We found Sara and Valerie’s hotel, but they had already left to do some sight-seeing, so Steve and I enjoyed lunch at McDonald’s (Maharaja Mac!) then walked to the Gateway of India/Taj Mahal Hotel. The inside of the Taj is GORGEOUS!!!! We spent a few minutes sitting in the lobby, then walked around the shopping area inside. A jewelry store owner saw us looking in his store windows and came over to talk to us (well, mostly Steve…grr)…he said that people never come in his store to look anymore because they’re afraid of getting conned into buying something and he just wants to talk to people! So we spent a good 30 minutes in their learning about India and how to avoid getting ripped off by cab drivers 🙂 After that, we found a ferry to take us to the Elephanta Island!!!! It wasn’t raining or anything, but the water was pretty choppy…we managed to keep our Mickey D’s down though 🙂 Steve and I spent a few hours exploring the caves, taking pictures of monkeys/puppies/caterpillars, and buying junk from vendors. It was a very relaxing afternoon and will definitely be remembered 🙂 The ride back was much much worse….I won’t go into detail, but I was SO happy to get off of that ferry!!!! Shortly after returning, we ran into Sara and Valerie on the street and showed each other our pictures and videos from the day. They had met a travel agent of some sort who was going to take them around the city and show them the not-so-touristy areas (aka the slums). Steve and I were starving and in dire need of a restroom, so we parted ways and agreed to meet up in the morning. We went into several stores trying to find a restroom, but didn’t have any luck (we did find a LeBron jersey in an Adidas store…nobody knew who he was though), so we resorted back to McDonald’s….that was by far the nastiest bathroom I have ever been in!!! We were too tired/lazy to search for food, so we just ate dinner at McDonald’s (eating fast food twice in one day was an awful idea) and then found a Western Union where we called home for the first time in 10 days 🙂 The cab ride back to the hotel was much better than the ride in (and it cost us less than half the price we paid in the morning!). Our driver was really really nice and told us how he learned English from driving tourists around for the last 30 or so years. Back at the JW, we found a complimentary lemon tart that had been left in our room (we thought it was pretty awesome and took a lot of pictures of it…yes, we’re weird). We spent the night watching more Indian tv (there was one show where a guy and girl were just staring into each others eyes, not saying anything and the background kept changing….that went on for at least 30 minutes!).

Thursday, 8/5: Again, we woke up feeling great and decided to swim in the hotel’s awesome pools and walk on the beach. I was kind of surprised by how dirty the beach was…people just throw their garbage wherever they feel like, so I had plastic bags and wrappers of all sorts floating around my feet. The water was way too rough (and gross-looking) for us to get in, but I’m happy to say I’ve been to the Arabian Sea! Not wanting to spend a fortune on lunch at the hotel, we walked a block or two down the street and found a SUBWAY!!!!!! It was so good! I thought it was interesting that they have two separate sandwich lines, one for vegetarian and the other for non-vegetarian. While we were eating, a group of cross-dressed tribal men walked up to the restaurant door and were motioning for me to come outside. Steve, nice guy that he is, thought the door was too heavy for the “women” to open, so he pulled it open for them and the Subway workers came running over to close it. I don’t know what those people were up to, but it was a very strange thing to see! I saw them walking into the slums on our way back to the hotel. Steve and I were chased by some beggar children when we walked down a street to the public beach…all of them do this motion where they point all of their fingers together and tap their lips, like they want us to give them money for food. It’s really sad to see so many children on the street, but at the same time, you almost become insensitive to them because there are so many. Before leaving the hotel, we talked to the concierge for a while and he gave us the names of places to check out in Goa. The flight we originally booked was supposed to leave at 1pm, but it then was pushed back to 2:40pm, and eventually 4:30pm. Valerie’s flight left Mumbai at 1pm, so she waited in the Goa airport for 4 or 5 hours before Sara, Steve, and I got there. We flew Kingfisher Airlines for only 45 minutes, but were still served an entire hot meal! You would never get that in the States! The van ride to the hotel in Goa (Victor Exotica) was pretty long, but gave us a chance to see the city (and the fact that Kingfisher pretty much owns Goa). We didn’t get to Victor Exotica until 7:30 or 8pm…we ate dinner there and pretty much just went to bed.

Overall, Mumbai was a great city to see–I just wish we had had more time there (and a hotel closer to all of the action)!