A Japanese Lesson

Today as I was coming back home something very interesting happened. It was around 11:00pm, I get on the bus, which has half empty, and a Japanese guy (tourist I suppose) came down from the back seats all the way to the driver and stood up next to him silently while giving the impression that he wanted to ask for directions for some place.

A couple of uncomfortable minutes passed while I was observing if the guy was maybe shy to ask (as in many places, a bus driver can even make your day or blow it off depending on his mood). So once the bus stopped at a red light and asked him for the directions. What I understood, is that he was actually very conscious that as a general rule you can’t talk to a driver because you can district him from, well… driving. So I was wondering if in the mind of the Japanese guy he thought that if he distracted the driver, there were a couple dozens people’s life at risk if he got him distracted and had an accident.

Maybe I’m exaggerating or over thinking the scene, but I thought it was a nice example of a lot of respect and education since I have the stereotype of Japanese people being this way. Then as I got off, I noticed that a man was a bit lost asking for directions, so I asked him if I could help. It turns that I indeed knew the place he had to go and pointed him which bus he had to take at the stop across the street. Apart of being motivated by the Japanese lesson, I though I could also use some good karma, since I haven’t been a very nice guy lately.

I’m Only Happy When it Rains

I love Sundays, but if there is something I love more than an ordinary Sunday is a quiet rainy one. Today I woke up not late (around noon, you judge) after a nice evening with a Mx friend walking around a very popular zone in the East of Rome  and then to a “centro sociale” near the main train station (I’ll explain what social centers are on another post).

Through him, I’ve meet a small group of Italians that are very much into in social, political and economic activism, from which I take the most I can in terms of understanding the mentality of people that are undergoing a crisis such as the one happening in Europe. Some of the conversations have to do with the old ways of living during decades of economic growth and prosperity. It’s hard as well to ask them if they have lived a crisis like this one in their lives and their answer is “no”.

This is very interesting because it helps me understand that many people may expect and desire a “change” because this is the lowest low they’ve ever known in their lives. But it’s also these times in which people need to give an extra, be innovative, learn a new language, or do new things that can help catch up with a changing world. But of course if you have never lived through an ugly period as this, how would you know this is THE TIME to do so? And this is the reality that as a foreigner I am currently experiencing. I mean, in 30 years there will be books of economics talking about the crisis in Europe, so I’m curious to see how things end like, while the story is being written as we speak.

All this sociocultural leanings in fact deserve arguments, examples and more fundamentals than what I’m willing to write and elaborate more on today, so I won’t go into details (though I’ve love to chat over a cup of coffee or a Skype call). But as anyone who knows me a bit can tell, they’re one of my favorite conversation topics and I always appreciate people open to discuss such things.

So yes, today rained most of the day, people must complain about this “tempo di merda” (shitty weather). On the other hand today I played some guitar, thought a lot about economic systems, high welfare countries vs. consumed capitalist societies that lower their worker’s quality of life at a very fast pace, etc. etc. … and even had time to write a blog entry, which I hadn’t done in weeks. I’d say this rainy Sunday couldn’t get any more productive than this. And if it wasn’t enough, I still have to call my mom in Mexico…

Besides, I saw this very nice phrase around the web, which kind of wraps up a conclusion I struggled to make for myself all day long:

Davide is O.K.

I woke up in the middle of the night as the neighboors next door were calling for help, as David, on of their sons I presume, was not feeling well. While listening to the debate weather them calling an ambulance or not, I took a book I’m reading called “Ganesha on the Dashboad”  by V. Raghunathan which questions many of Indian traditions, as they lack, what the Indian author describes as “scientific temper“.

Which brought me to the question: Why are people buried when they die?…

To my understanding it’s some foolish tradition that happens to be a big business for packing nicely a body that is going to decompose anyway, not to mention the space it unnecessarily occupies in this piece of land called cementery. What if Hindus were buried instead of cremated? would there be enough space in India for all of them? I wonder if burying is actually cheaper than cremating, or viceversa. or maybe it has to be with a sociological explanation, desguised as a religious one (as usual).

If it’s a sociological explanation, then maybe the Christian view has to do with nature, decomposition and nurturing the land. Maybe this is why bodies were buried… considering, of course, there were no space constraints in ancient times. But where they in India?… I don’t think so, which complicates far more my assumptions.

In any case, I thought it was an interesting topic to investigate on, hopefully I’ll get some answers. And yes, it sucks to be waked up un the middle of the night, but at least I’m almost done with the book.

At the end  don’t think no ambulance came, so in case anyone was worried, Davide is O.K…. and I go back to sleep.

The Road For Coffee

Find a few obstacles right off the office…

In India people are very warm and gentle, they can easily offer a ride to a stranger who needs help to cross the street…

The contrasts here are such, that from one street to another a meter to another you find so different realities…

Indian Starbucks…

Coffee and a Samosa?… why not..

The reward….

India is indeed a challenging place… that’s the beauty of it

Marketing is Overrated Anyway…

One of the most recurrent things I heard from people turning to their countries after living in India was that life back there was boring… And now that I’m back in Mumbai I have to say that I can’t agree more…

But if there’s someone out there who thinks the contrary, then I hope she/he has good arguments to prove it!

Indian Week

This week is randomly particular (and fun) because my best friend in Bangalore visited me in Rome and we were around together with his girlfriend and my ex roommate from India who now works here as well. On Thursday I have another friend from Paris, who I met in Bangalore as well, coming to spend some days over here.

At work we have the Mumbai team here for some meetings and they were very kind to bring me a little Ganesh figurine, postcards and other stuff I asked them for. Things started to get interestingly surprising when the Indian boss asked me if I would like him to speak with my Italian boss about me spending some months working in Mumbai office to “catch up” on the business.

I told him I would be happy to have a coffee over it

Landing Planes

It is interesting to observe how people behave in planes, especially when you land. I hate totally dislike when people stand when the seatbelt light is still on. We might think some things are absurd, but if we chose to travel by air we should stick to their rules. And yes, I know, I´m no etiquette authority to point this out, but…

The funniest scene I’ve seen is actually an guy that stood up right after landing while the plane was still moving towards the platform and they were calling him from the cabin on the speakers asking him to go back to his seat. While he was the only one standing getting his luggage from the storage compartments, he didn´t realized they were talking to him. My best guess is that he thought he was travelling on a bus… back to Bangalore from Thailand. After a couple of attempts, a flight attendant had to stand up to personally ask him to go back to his seat and buckle up.

Yesterday I landed in Mumbai and even when the plane had already stopped, the seatbelt light was still on. Yet, people stood up and picked their stuff while the attendant again had to ask a bunch of guys in suits to seat back. Anyway, I guess right now I’m a little susceptible to Indian behavior, but I’m sure it happens at all levels and in every country.

I find observing this behavior very interesting because I see no difference in saving a couple of minutes, standing on a queue, being pushed by the other passengers while the doors have not even been opened for exiting. All this happening while I´m still comfortably seated sipping the last drops of my bottle of water.

Same thing happens with the cell phones. I mean, you have already survived with your device off for a couple of hours. What is the rush of checking your emails/missed calls/sms´s before the Capitan confirms that you can turn your cel back on? I could understand that businessmen consider that time is money, but hey, remaining seated a couple of minutes with your phone off, as security measures advice, haven´t kill anyone.

But the most nonsense behavior is rushing in the queue for boarding the plane in the first place. People, if you already checked-in at the counter and made it through the security checks, trust me, the airline people are well aware that you are around, so even if you are busy taking a leak, you will hear your name called out in the boarding gates a few times before they decide to leave without you.

Moreover, your seat is numbered (unless you are flying Ryan Air where I could understand the rush), so there is no way that someone will arbitrarily take your seat. If you are worried about not finding place for your luggage, then it means you are carrying too much. In any case, the airline is well aware of how many people and luggage’s checked in, so in the worse case they will find space for your stuff. And even if it is not exactly above your head as you would like to, trust me, no one will steal it.

Yes yes, I know, we are very busy and important people, but just remember from time to time to follow basic courtesy and safety rules. For God´s sake, let´s behave like if we have really came a long way since we were chimpanzees… even if, perhaps, we haven´t actually made that much progress…

Gender Nonsense

Some months back I was looking at the figures from the last census in India saying that in this country there were 109 males for every 100 females under the age of six, up from 107 in 2001… and increasing.

This calls my attention because having a male son is very important for the role they play as a traditional supporter of the family, while the female has a more family-house oriented role. At the same time, India is statistically considered one of the most dangerous countries in the world due to the evidence of femicides.

According to a 2011 study by the Center for Global Health Research in Canada, between 4.2 million and 12.1 million girls were aborted during the last three decades in this country. Some studies point that there is a common myth that daughters don’t benefit their families, I guess as a tradeoff of a productive economic activity perspective.

I would like to think it’s the lower uneducated classes who invest their lifetime savings in educating the son, while the daughter is left at home for housekeeping activities. Upper class families with money and access to ultrasound could potentially use this technology for sex determination purposes, something illegal in India if used for that particular matter. So then the reasons for deciding to have a boy over a girl is not exactly monetary, but traditional.

What I can conclude so far, and this is a very personal point of view, is that females are considered more a liability than an asset to a typical Indian family. But again, I hope this happens in the traditional lower levels of societies and that things in modern times are changing.

The reasons for this sociocultural phenomenon can have its roots in other fundamentals, such as poverty. But for the time being, I’m just trying to bring a picture of the story to the people that have never been in India. In fact, the ultimate reason why this calls my attention is not really for those people, but for simple market reasons. Let me explain…

In India the tradition for marriage, apart that it is most likely arranged between the parents, is that the family of the bride has to pay contribute with a dowry. This is can be in the form of money, goods or properties that a woman brings forth to the marriage. So then the question is how in the world this whole dowry thing is, at least statistically, a nonsense exception to the basic supply and demand rule, where:

The “shortage” of females represents a movement (decrease) along the Quantity Axis to the left (arrow 1), which inversely affects the Y Axis, as explained in arrow 2, pushing the price upwards.

So, why again do the family of the girl would have to pay when it’s actually the daughter who is the scarce “resource” in society? Which brings us to the next stage of the evolution of the theory of trade which is precisely…?

You guessed, Import-Export, the way markets make up for their deficits or surpluses… but that is perhaps a topic for some other time…