India

whale · #1 11-08-2007, 06:05 PM

So, two people I work with are in Kolkata (formerly known as Calcutta) India for work. When prompted by e-mail for how the trip was going we got this response. It is pretty depressing......hard to imagine.

"I am trying to forget this place, even while I am still here, so I haven't felt like describing it. We don't really ever want to leave the hotel. Abject squalor, open sewer (literally - people just pissing in the middle of the streets, next to buildings, etc. And I don't mean that sometime during the night a bum had to take a leak - everywhere you look someone is just standing around relieving themselves. Might as well be in the Fenway bleachers). Cows meandering everywhere blocking traffic. The nastiest, mangiest dogs lying around everywhere. Big piles of trash mounded up all over the place and filled with people picking through them. The scariest roads and traffic you will ever see (I am being very liberal with the definition of "roads", and the traffic here makes China's look like driving through Utah during church services). Knarled up filthy people lying around with blank stares in lean-to's made of sticks and trash and erected randomly all over the place. Dirt and mud everywhere. Swarms of bugs. If you think of the most despairing third-world pictures you have ever seen, this is worse. With the surreal juxtaposition of professional business people living and moving amongst this seemingly unaware that it even exists.

And all of this is in the business district!

The nicest thing I can say about the place is that it is very hot and humid. To be fair, we haven't gone into "downtown" Kolkata yet because we are working in the high tech business sector, so maybe things improve there. I'm not too hopeful because today for lunch we left the business sector and went to the new financial and cultural sector and it was much worse there.

Tomorrow, we fly two hours south to a seaside resort for the weekend. I'm hoping that will be much nicer because I would hate for all of India to be like this place."

Blue_Runner · #2 11-08-2007, 07:24 PM

Whale, I work in IT - for 10 years now - and we outsource alot of our work to India. Therefore I work with alot of Indian people. I meet with them all the time. This morning I had 2 separate meeting with Indians.

What's crazy is when I first started working with them none of us could understand a word they were saying. Now after about 5 years we hardly ever have to ask them to repeat themselves. Its wierd how you learn to understand thier jibberish.

P.S. I'm not surprised by the conditions described in your friend's email.

msbhammer · #3 11-08-2007, 07:36 PM

Sounds like an old city dept. I use to work for.

Sean · #4 11-09-2007, 05:43 PM

Sad people really do live like that.
But it is no wounder when you call customer support there so ireatable ;D

whale · #5 11-09-2007, 07:10 PM

I think when you call customer support you get the "upper class".....the dichotemy there seems huge.....the have's are miles ahead of the "have-nots".

Hammerhead · #6 11-14-2007, 04:38 PM

Yuk. Seen some bad places in my days but, that took the cake.

whale · #7 11-15-2007, 12:43 AM

So, as a followup, on Monday there was a big protest in the city where basically nobody went to work. My boss said they were escorted to the place they were working by 10 guards armed with uzi's. The people are upset over the taking of land by the communist government to establish new business and industrial districts.

On top of that they are now anticipating a category 4 hurricane (cyclone) to have a direct hit on the area on Friday.

Sounds like fun!

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...mp;refer=india