I suppose I can safely say that what bothers me more about deal hunting in India is not so much the question of how much I overpaid for something. Rather, it is that when you ask someone whether or not you've overpaid, the reflexive response is always that you've overpaid.
"Yes, you did alright, but you could've gotten it cheapers by 100, 200, 1000 rupees!".
It seems you can always go lower.
I suppose Gurcharan (our driver in Delhi) could have taken as low as 3000 or 3500 rupees for the trip to Agra (forgeting for a moment the magic formula). I mean really, he only paid 1000 rupees in gas. Throw in another 1000 for wear an tear on his car. Then he can easily pocket 1000 to 1500 rupees. That is after all what he charged for spending the entire day with us in Delhi!
It seems, perhaps unwittingly, people try to push others into subsistence.
Once I had arrived in Dubai, I was standing in line waiting to have my retina scanned (civl liberties anyone?). A chap who had been on the plane with me, sitting in "business class" (I was upgraded), was standing right next to me. He was no more than 22, and wouldn't stop talking. One of the Brahmin folk.
"How did you like India", he asked.
"The divide between rich and poor is something I can't get over. How does this driver live off $20-$30 a day!", I replied.
"You know, those people deserve it. They don't work hard. I work hard, I'm trying to get an MBA!".
They don't work hard indeed.
Is humanity being pushed to the lowest common denominator. A man-eats-man world. Sons of the privileged not content enough with having things served to them on a silver platter beating on the poor.
On the flip side of things, the sort of environment that emerges in India is one in which I don't think you really want to be "splurgng". Perhaps this is why Bombay was the way that it was. Or perhaps this is why over in Gurgaon, home to many new companies, you can see fancy BMWs sharing the same potted dirt roads as the cows and the Tuk-Tuks. Perhaps this is why the Punjabis, 10kms or so away from where we spent our nights, at the Meridien, knew that poor Lina and I were guests at the fancy hotel.It's hard of course when you are visibly foreign to escape the typecasting, unless you lose the fancy bullseye camera.
Thinking back to our work and the outsourcing we sometimes do to India. To coversations with engineers always eager to say yes. Yes they can. And yes they can do it for less. This crumbling world economy. The people who are hungry, not just for food on the table, but to get more and more, and to get ahead of everyone else. The differences here are so stark, so visible. Is this the natural state of things? The law of economic entropy. Is this our new equilibrium?
"Yes, you did alright, but you could've gotten it cheapers by 100, 200, 1000 rupees!".
It seems you can always go lower.
I suppose Gurcharan (our driver in Delhi) could have taken as low as 3000 or 3500 rupees for the trip to Agra (forgeting for a moment the magic formula). I mean really, he only paid 1000 rupees in gas. Throw in another 1000 for wear an tear on his car. Then he can easily pocket 1000 to 1500 rupees. That is after all what he charged for spending the entire day with us in Delhi!
It seems, perhaps unwittingly, people try to push others into subsistence.
Once I had arrived in Dubai, I was standing in line waiting to have my retina scanned (civl liberties anyone?). A chap who had been on the plane with me, sitting in "business class" (I was upgraded), was standing right next to me. He was no more than 22, and wouldn't stop talking. One of the Brahmin folk.
"How did you like India", he asked.
"The divide between rich and poor is something I can't get over. How does this driver live off $20-$30 a day!", I replied.
"You know, those people deserve it. They don't work hard. I work hard, I'm trying to get an MBA!".
They don't work hard indeed.
Is humanity being pushed to the lowest common denominator. A man-eats-man world. Sons of the privileged not content enough with having things served to them on a silver platter beating on the poor.
On the flip side of things, the sort of environment that emerges in India is one in which I don't think you really want to be "splurgng". Perhaps this is why Bombay was the way that it was. Or perhaps this is why over in Gurgaon, home to many new companies, you can see fancy BMWs sharing the same potted dirt roads as the cows and the Tuk-Tuks. Perhaps this is why the Punjabis, 10kms or so away from where we spent our nights, at the Meridien, knew that poor Lina and I were guests at the fancy hotel.It's hard of course when you are visibly foreign to escape the typecasting, unless you lose the fancy bullseye camera.
Thinking back to our work and the outsourcing we sometimes do to India. To coversations with engineers always eager to say yes. Yes they can. And yes they can do it for less. This crumbling world economy. The people who are hungry, not just for food on the table, but to get more and more, and to get ahead of everyone else. The differences here are so stark, so visible. Is this the natural state of things? The law of economic entropy. Is this our new equilibrium?
No comments:
Post a Comment