India-India : The Final Chapter

‘Escaped’ from India
Finally I finished my 2 weeks business trip in India. Now is 7:05pm (Singapore time 9:35pm) and I am in the restaurant in Cochin airport. This is the only restaurant in the airport. I am waiting for my flight which going to departures at 11.15pm (Cochin time). For me, is it a long time wait? No at all when compares with something I have been waiting for since yeas.

This is really a love and hate trip for me. Love is I really did learn something, had a good exposure of India and did meet some very nice people. Hate is it is really tiring when sit in the meeting room for whole day. I admit that I am that kind of person who can’t sit on my desk and keep doing work for whole day. I must move my body, walk around, take a break and chat with people.

Today in the office I was really counting down my time to leave India. 20-19-18-17…hours, kept reminding myself that only left out for how many hours and I could reach Singapore. Silly right?

The Conclusion
It is time for me to conclude my trip. In work, I know more about what I am going to do for the following months and know more about Business Object universes design. Of course, what have given me more impression and impact are the living style, culture, people and a lot more in India.

For sure I am not qualified to give any comment to India. I am only telling what I have seen and heard from India. There is always a good side and a bad side for everything and everybody, India as well. Since it is a huge developing country and have more than 900 millions of population who live in this land, it is very difficult to ensure everything is in good order and well take care of. However, I can see the country is changing and of course the people are changing as well.

People here are looking for better education, better and highest pay job and a better living environment. My collogues told me, compare with 5 years ago, the salary is almost 100% increasing in Bangalore and Cochin. It is great which allows the number of middle status population to grow. It makes the structure of India society become more balance. No like past time, the richest was forever rich and the poor was forever poor.

Of course, there are still some political unstable issues in India which do slow down the step of the country’s development. Education and old mind set are also the issues here. What I can said is majority people in India are poor. A lot of them don’t have an opportunity to go college and have a better education. This is going to be carry forward from generations to generations. Unless the government able to provide free education to them. Just like what Malaysia government has well take care of certain group of people. Otherwise, it is very difficult for those people to improve their living standard without a sheet of certificate.

The old mind set which included the low social status for woman and for the poor (I heard that there are certain group of people stamped to be low social status for generations to generations). Majority people still don’t have the intention to keep the environment clear (serious, most parts of Bangalore and Cochin are very dirty, even just outside the international airport). I still see quite a lot of men who just turn their back to the main streets and pee. It is the culture or habit; I am not able to tell. Of course, there are still have lot of others problems in India.

Good thing is I really can see people are trying to improve their live and be more proud of being an Indian because of the country is getting strongest in economy. I met a part time working student in hotel swimming pool. He is studying in college and sponsors by the school. Without the sponsor, he never able to go to college. I asked him to study hard and must get a degree. Then he can have a better chance to improve his life and see the world. When I left, I gave him all the money that I could find from my backpack as tips. Even though just a few hundred rupees but I really hope what I did do encourage him to complete his study. No matter how tough it is.

The service standard in India is very good, especially in hotel. Can tell that people are happy and proud of their jobs which is to serve people. In fact, they really provide a good service. It is what I hardly find in others Asia countries like Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Korea. Of course there are others good things in India but pardon me that I only able to list down these 2 since I don’t have much time to exposure this country.

Just give this country another 20 years and for sure it will have a big change. Of course I hope is change to be better. Even though I might not able to see that. 20 years, who know where am I? Maybe already 'extinct'.