First Impression!

Not long back, some of our top management guys from the U.S. had come down here for a brief period of I suppose 20 days. We, as usual, had some meetings, some parties, some lunches/dinners together, and some trainings as well! However, we had (or did they) this opportunity to share some personal/professional experiences over these “meetings.”

I came to know of what these guys think about my country. Not everyone/everything was negative but a lot of it was not definitely positive. I do not blame them completely. Everyone has problems, my country has some, and theirs would be having some. However, the point I am trying to make is, they come upfront and tell you; expect you to accept it; and not say or point out similar things about their country. Strange, isn’t it?

Moreover, they develop an overall opinion (first impression) of the whole country when they have just seen a small part of only the sixth largest city in India! Eg. One of the things that repetitively surfaced in almost all the discussions was how people do not follow traffic rules here and how there were no traffic signals!! (Didn’t I mention, they just stayed in a small area of a big city!!). Yes, one of them was of the opinion that there were no traffic signals in the city!! We explained it to him that he needs to explore the city further to experience the how Indian signals looked like. He did and was terrified the next day! His driver must’ve probably driven him through some busier areas of the city and our man got freaked out by the ‘excellent’ driving skills of Indians! Yes, people here do not have traffic sense…accepted…there are reasons for that as well…

1. There are so many people on the road…its difficult to maintain traffic sense without hitting a couple of them..so most of us concentrate on the latter part

2. Everyone around you thinks the same as mentioned above…so you do not have any other option

3. The cops have too many people to handle at a given point and hence they have stopped maintaining traffic discipline…

He is from Dallas, Texas where the reported population in 2010 was 1.2 million. The reported population in Hyderabad in 2011 was 4.01 million!!! Why won’t there be “so many people” on the road?? Isn’t it obvious??

Another common thing, they loved our food, (except for one who found our Jeera rice spicy) till the point they were full. They observed five common things that were always present on an Indian food menu (all of us are analysts…so that’s natural to come!) viz…kababs and their 5 variants…tandoori, mughlai, seekh, and few other. Now, tell me this, how many of their menus have anything other than mashed potatoes for the veggies, chicken breasts (cooked in different styles), pork ribs, beef stews and sausages for the other half of the population??? I can bet that that just one state of India can give you more recipes than the whole of U.S.A!!! If you like something, just say so. Do not pass comments which do not hold substance just in an attempt to sound humorous!

I really felt hurt when some of these things like above were pointed by these people. Afterall, I felt, it is my country. No matter, how clichéd, dirty, crowded, and unreasonable it might be…This is where I was born, where I’ve lived my whole life…I wouldn’t like anyone coming and pointing out all the wrong things all the time..Hell not!!! But yes, I went ahead and cribbed about it, which I did the exact next day, after these strong feelings of being an Indian were tickled by the Americans…I’m allowed to, hello, I’m an Indian!!!!