Initial impressions of India

I sent this as an email to some of my friends on March 21st 2006 when I went to India on my first business trip. During the past 6 years before that, I had been to India only once, for a very short while in 2003 and on a personal trip. Jeshmi is a friend of mine who grew up in more affluent circumstances and Krishna always had a sense of his own importance and hence handled these situations with a certain skill

All of you will find this funny, I walk into IonIdea building yesterday morning and the first thing I see is "IonIdea welcomes Mr. Raag Srinivasan" at the front desk !! Later in the evening the HR manager unloaded a boat load of butter on me saying "everybody is singing your praises". I could not resist asking her "what song were they singing".

It has been a while since I worked in India, so it is a little unnerving when people rush to open doors for you. You cannot leave the hotel room without someone outside saying "Good Morning Sir"!! I have to express a desire for water and 2 people will rush to get me bottled water!!

I am a misfit in this environment, but I can see Krishna and Jeshmi thriving in it lording over people although with Jeshmi we all know it is very natural for her.

There is a real class distinction (it always was there), although there are definitely more affluent people than before.