January 16, 2008

I woke and joined Dr. Mithas, Ali Cherry, and Anthony Cain for breakfast. The three of us stayed later than others due to an airline billing quirk whereby we saved a few hundred dollars to stay an extra day. Drs. Ritu Agarwal and Kislaya Prasad had provided a few sightseeing tips the night before, so we hired a driver for the day. We visited a few markets including Dalli Haat as well as a beautiful park filled with exotic plants and birds. At Raghomull's in Connaught Place I bought a T-shirt emblazoned with "Keep Walking," resembling the Johnny Walker logo, with an outline of Gandhi. I felt that the slogan was much more fitting to Gandhi's hike across the country to protest the salt tax, a passionate demonstration of purposeful revolution, than a brand of whiskey.

We were also treated as guests by one of Dr. Mithas' friends, who lived in a gorgeous and spacious home with huge marble tiled floors, stunning artwork, and a dance and music studio in the basement. The diminutive "helper" served us beverages, several dishes of hot and cold appetizers, and velvety spiced tea with milk. The two sons of our host family spoke of their ambitions to either work up to their father's position or go into an IT-related field. They were clearly bright, took their studies seriously, and planned to work in India based on their preference over the US lifestyle. We parted with an exchange of gifts; the hospitality would blow American Southerners away.

I was dropped off at the airport with three hours to spare; my first time alone in India. It took a while to navigate through crowds to find Continental, but the process was a breeze and I was through customs and security within an hour. I grabbed a quick paneer masala sandwich and settled in to read a spell. Boarding began an hour prior to takeoff, which took me by surprise. The preponderance of Americans meant that lines were orderly, but after having my boarding pass scanned I simply moved into another line for airline specific security. Some passengers moaned, but I appreciated the added measure.

As I sat down on the plane, I noticed that my TV screen was scrambled and asked a flight attendant if I could change seats. The fact that I had a middle seat directly in front of a bathroom served as additional motivation to raise a fuss. Meanwhile, I struck up a conversation with my neighbor, a Christian missionary from Puerto Rico working through Maranatha [1]. She reported that she had worked alongside Hindus, Moslems, and other Christians to build a school for villagers in Uttar Pradesh, and was humbled by the joy and hospitality of the impoverished villagers.

A flight attendant tapped my shoulder and showed me to an aisle seat with a functional TV screen (and no one in the middle seat, Hallelujah!). I noticed Praphul Kumar, a classmate, across the other aisle and shouted over jubilantly. The man that we were talking over entered our conversation; he turned out to be Dr. Gerald Zeitz, a professor of HRM at Temple University, who had coincidentally been staying at MDI as well. His trip had been focused on classroom learning with just a few company visits, and his greatest takeaways were that the theories discussed in US business schools are implemented rigorously in Indian companies, oftentimes better than in US companies and that the acceptance of rapid change and innovation is cutting edge in Indian companies.

The flight seemed quicker on the way home, likely due to a combination of longer in-flight sleep, less anxiety about the coming days, and accustomization to the long trip. I read the lion's share of 'The Fortune at the Bottom of the Period' by C. K. Prahalad on the way home, and ironically did not use the TV screen. The flight touched down at 4:30 AM and I was amazed that I was through security, customs, and immigration in about an hour, with three hours to spare before my final flight home. I grabbed a huge coffee and set down to plow through some more of the book.