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So, I finally saw it. The Taj Mahal is a pretty awesome site. I think the Taj and the Dome of the Rock mosque in Jerusalem are the two most beautiful buildings I’ve seen, though the Taj is definitely better from a distance and the Dome of the Rock is at its best fairly close-up. Muslims knew how to get their architecture on back in the day, for real.
And some other bullets:
• Delhi has been the nicest city we’ve visited in India. That’s probably confusing to a lot of people, because before I went there I heard it was one of the hottest and worst. Yet the weather was perfect while we were there — not too hot and totally clear — and it was like an Indian version of Washington, D.C. with all the landscaping and traffic circles. That felt nice and familiar, plus the sweets shops have the good North Indian stuff and it’s easy to find fun bars and restaurants. I give Delhi the props.
• Agra, on the other hand, is a bit on the ugly side. Our driver Vinod, who is mad awesome, was complaining about the Uttar Pradesh government siphoning off all the road and cleanup money and pocketing it, and if so, it’s definitely evident. The Taj Mahal is obviously cool and so is the Red Fort, but around that it could use some sprucing up. You could make it totally sweet, too: plenty of the houses are really old and have lots of character. Fix the corruption = Agra 2.0.
• Of anything I did to make MAP a good experience, getting married was by far the best. My in-laws have been fantastic and are the undisputed highlight of the trip. Shoutout to Palu, Sameer, Gita Auntie, V.P. Uncle, Ashok and Vinod for representing!
• Easter Mass in Delhi is pretty much like it is in Pittsburgh, except they add Hindi Casio keyboard synthesizers. So there’s that.
• Easter also means my Lenten thing of just two meat servings per week is done. That meant some fantastic chicken tikka tonight, which I plan to crush until I leave next week. Gotta load up!
Time’s winding down here in India before it’s back to the States. Keep it otherwise ah-cha til next time, and I’m out.
I am back from the Internet desert that was Bombay. (More on the name later.) My hotel didn’t have wireless and the Internet cafe wasn’t always open, thus the lack of updates even via Twitter. But you know I’m not letting you down, so here’s a summation of the city as I saw it over the past five days.
1. Bombay is hot. Clothes-drenchingly, sensory-multiplyingly hot. The city is plenty to deal with just in terms of smells, sights, sounds and general craziness alone, but throw in 98-degree days with 100 percent humidity every day and you got a recipe for some dry cleaning needs with the quickness. Wearing shorts and a T shirt is tough enough, but I got stuck wearing dress clothes for three days while we did interviews. I think my favorite gray pants could probably walk on their own right now.
2. As a white dude, I should probably call it Mumbai. But as someone in India, I would probably be alone in doing that. I have yet to meet a single Indian person here who doesn’t refer to the city by its old British name, and this so confused us that we had a big debate before sending out our interview-request emails as to whether we should mention that we were traveling to “Bombay” or “Mumbai” — if we say “Bombay”, we might sound hip to the game, but we might also sound like old-school imperialist dudes with handlebar mustaches and pith helmets. If we say “Mumbai”, then we sound respectful, but also like we are totally out of the Indian thing. Ultimately we figured we were new to the place, so Mumbai it was.
3. Driving is actually a little saner in Mumbai than in Bangalore. It’s still insanity, but people seem to occasionally notice the lane lines on the road.
4. I finally learned some Hindi. Now I can tell you “cool” (ah-chai), “OK” (teekay) and “get out of my face” (jao jao! — good for aggressive beggars). Hello Boss, OK no problem!
5. Poverty gets depressing after a while. Shocking, I know. What probably surprised me more is that slum dwellings and half-naked children blend unobtrusively into the surroundings pretty quickly, even for a liberal-leaning dude like me. Many of those people have jobs and enough to eat, and the entrepreneurial spirit in India is amazing such that everyone seems to have a niche. But then you see two parents tucking in their kids for a night of sleeping on the sidewalk, and you think, how am I even supposed to process this? I wish I had the answer, but considering all of human history, there probably isn’t one.
6. That said, the active beggars are rarely the sympathetic ones. In fact, it’s usually the opposite. I’m probably biased because a wraith-like beggar woman ambushed me on a dark street the first week I was here, latched onto my pocket for three blocks and refused to let go, and then ultimately pickpocketed me for 100 rupees. In the end it was hella annoying, but nothing worse than a $2 reminder to keep my hand in my pocket.
This time in Bombay (I like to switch off) I was ready: I went out and bought some two-rupee mini-packs of Parle-G biscuits to hand out to panhandlers so they wouldn’t bother me for cash. (These cookie-esque biscuits are also quite tasty, and Rajesh and I ate them for breakfast a few times when in a rush.) This didn’t have quite the expected result: instead of being grateful, most recipients looked at the biscuits like I had handed them a Sudoku puzzle to figure out. On the way to the airport today, a girl came up to the open window, stuck in her hand and started singing “Jingle Bells”, which I found funny because the elevator in our hotel inexplicably played “Jingle Bells” every time the door was opened. I remembered I had a last pack of biscuits and gave it to her, after which she proceeded to say “No Parle-G, only rupee” while smiling the whole time and ignoring my response of “No rupee, no rupee.” Sorry homegirl, it’s Parle-G or nothing.
Even better was when a monkey-owning woman followed Brian around until he gave her a Parle-G pack. She insisted she needed rupees “for the baby’s milk powder”, then huffed at him when he walked off. He turned around later and she was feeding the Parle-Gs to the monkey.
7. Oh yeah, monkeys. They are some smart dudes, but not cute. Elephanta Island (which has bad-ass caves with stone carvings that are 1,600 years old) is infested with monkeys who have learned to steal people’s food and eat it. Brian saw one monkey steal a bottle of Mazza (mango drink) off of a kid, untwist the cap and chug it down. Another monkey tried to steal Jim’s water bottle while we were walking by, then stood in front of us and barked aggressively until this other Indian guy came by and swung a bag at the monkey. We were trying to figure out whether we should kick the monkey or what would be the best way to divert it, but luckily the Indian dude acted first. Now you know why I keep my windows shut at work.
8. End lesson: I think Mumbai would be great fun if you had the ability to buy your way out of the reality of it. As it was, it was a really stimulating and intense place, but after five days I was drained and ready to head back to Bangalore. I ended up at the Taj hotel twice this weekend, the same one that was hit by terrorists in November. It’s fully operational again, which is great to see, and it’s a beautiful hotel. It also represents the reality of Mumbai for maybe .00005% of the population of 16 million, so while it would be amazing to spend all your time there, it would be only partially real. What else is real are haggling cabbies, smelly streets, tasty food, sweaty handkerchiefs and hand-holding families on Chowpatty Beach. But I guess that’s the big reason to visit Mumbai: if nothing else, these dudes keep it extra real.
A unique Indian gesture is the head waggle. It is pretty much done anytime one is saying, “OK, sure, will do”. Naturally we had a contest to see who could do the best one:
The other day I was avoiding a decrepit bus and stepping between four auto-rickshaws when I thought, “Stepping between four auto-rickshaws and avoiding a decrepit bus isn’t an everyday occurrence in the United States. I think there may be some material here. Hey, that dog understands traffic patterns.”
For those who want the quick version, here’s a video that encapsulates things nicely:
Much like the rest of India, Indian driving is centered around filling a vacuum — if there’s even a sliver of space to fill, it will be filled by someone or something. In this instance, the something is a car, truck, auto-rickshaw, bus, bicycle, motorcycle or pedestrian. Lanes be damned — there’s a two-foot-wide space along the side of that cement truck that will fit a motorcycle with four people on it, so into the space that motorcycle goes. This is true whether the vehicular pack is stopped at an intersection or moving down the highway at 30 miles per hour — the crowding is the constant.
There is also the honking. I thought I was used to constant honking from my time in New York, but as with every night, I can hear the horns outside now, and they’re averaging a beep about every .8 seconds. Fortunately we’re about 100 feet off the main road and I rock the earplugs every night, so the din isn’t such a big deal. (Earplugs also work with snoring MAP team members, FYI. Though for the sake of fairness and disclosure, I too should probably gift my teammates a spare pair.)
The horn is actually a pretty useful implement in this part of the world — roll up into that two-foot space, and the horn is a great way to signal to the truck driver, “Hey, I’m here on my bike with my totally sweet standard-issue mustache, please don’t squash me and deprive me of many future years of mustache-growing.”
I’d wish to myself that there were more order in the road system here, but experiencing it is a great way to accede to the crazy paradox of India — it’s pretty close to chaos, and yet everyone ultimately gets where they need to go. Plus, you learn quickly that it’s time to cross when the auto-rickshaws switch off their engines. The ever-dishonest rickshaw driver is our nemesis, but admittedly he does function as an effective crosswalk signal.
This Twitter blogging is way easier than actual blogging, but here are some notes anyway.
Food here is really cheap. Beer, strangely, is not so much. Tonight my teammates and I went out for dinner. Total cost for three people’s dinner and drinks: $11. Beer portion of that: $4 for two beers. It’s a little weird, because it’s definitely possible to find $2 beers in the U.S., but forget about finding a $3.75 dinner.
Monkeys here are not cute. In fact, they are fairly scary. Four of them came around the office today, and we had to lock the door to stop them coming in and stealing our lunch. Those dudes are not cool, I’m sorry.
The array of smells here is fairly surreal. A lot of people have discussed how India smells; it’s true, you can’t really describe it. Definitely a lot of urine and foul-smelling things, but then mixed with a smoky smell and lots of other stuff I can’t figure out. I wouldn’t describe it as pleasant at all, but I’m still getting used to it anyway.
I’ve been here now for 2.5 (sorta) days, so time to catch everyone up on what’s gone down with some phat platitudes:
Flying to India takes a long time. The other three Peek India MAPpers and I counted things up and realized it took us 36 hours to go from door to door — Ann Arbor apartments to our Bangalore guest house. Before I left I had planned to do a diary of my extended time on three flights, but afterwards I’m glad I forgot, because after I got to my Chicago layover and had a nice chance to hang with The Wife for a few hours, this is pretty much the extent of it:
First four hours from O’Hare to Frankfurt: Try and fail to sleep, then briefly succeed.
Next two hours: continue reading Freedom at Midnight.
Final 1.5 hours: Watch Bridge on the River Kwai; get mad when it’s interrupted by landing.
First 5.5 hours of flight to Mumbai after 1.5 hours in Frankfurt: Finish Bridge; watch The Longest Day to continue random WWII movie marathon.
Next 2.5 hours: Try and fail to sleep; land in Mumbai at 5 a.m. local time.
Next 3 hours: Deal with Mumbai airport bureaucracy; get waved through security for no apparent reason while other teammates get scanned; eat samosas with ketchup for breakfast; board flight to Bangalore.
36 hours from start: Get to Bangalore house at noon local time; eat food in jet-lagged daze.
Traffic in India is something else. Nobody really respects lanes here and honking is constant, but somehow everyone seems to get to their destination. Crossing the street though is like playing Frogger with your life. Fun! My secret is finding some Indian person going where I want to go, then letting them play fullback-in-a-sari as I run for a TD to the other side of the street.
Still getting used to eating Indian food three times per day. I haven’t had the traveler’s curse, although I will euphemistically say that my system is a little confused.
The apartment is nice, but I look forward to getting out more. We’re still getting settled and starting our project work, so so far there hasn’t been much touring around. But I’ll have more interesting stuff to say soon, for real.
Though this will say posted at 11:20 p.m., in reality here it’s 9:50 a.m. 10.5 hours from EST — you’re ending your day while I’m starting mine.
While it’s not so dramatic in our modern, travel-friendly age, tomorrow marks my departure for India. On a personal level, it’s going to be strange to be leaving my classmates, my Ann Arbor experience, and most of all, my wife. Regardless, I’m still very excited for a once-in-a-lifetime rare opportunity to travel halfway around the world and live my life in India for a full five weeks.
It’s a crazy opportunistic time we live in, yo. Think back to what your grandparents could do in their day and age and it’s obvious: Take nothing for granted!
Keep reading the blog for updates — I promise to keep you all posted on the next five weeks via patrickstack.com. This blog isn’t as fun as the old one, but it’s still good for something!
If Robespierre were to ascend from hell and seek out today’s guillotine fodder, he might start with a list of those with three incriminating initials beside their names: MBA. The Masters of Business Administration, that swollen class of jargon-spewing, value-destroying financiers and consultants have done more than any other group of people to create the economic misery we find ourselves in.
There’s a lot of validity to this article, and perhaps the naturally occurring grad-school process of divorcing theory from reality is more harmful in the business world than in other disciplines. But I promise, I do not find it awesome to destroy value.
Though my motto is indeed “Mediocre But Arrogant”.
After 21 weeks and nine courses, my MBA class is finished with the Ross core curriculum first-year class set. These are the wide-ranging classes we all have to take before branching out in our second year into electives. There are a few slots for electives in the first year too, but most of the time is spent on dropping core bid-nass knowledge so we can all be well-rounded corporate leadaz of tomorrow.
So I’m turning tables up in this and giving each core class a grade, all using the non-lettered and happily-impossible-for-GPA-calculation Ross scoring system. (Excellent > Good > Pass > Low Pass > Fail). All you potential Ross School of Badass hustlaz can read up here for the info. This takes into account my background, which is that of a non-business dude, so people with financial or accounting experience probably had a much different set of opinions. I won’t be going into detail on the particular profs for each; I save that for my UMich course evaluations. I’ll also warn you that the particular makeup of your section will determine a lot of your class experience; fortunately, Section Six represents to the fullest.
And finally, if anyone stumbles on this and dislikes it, remember that grades don’t matter at Ross anyway. (A truly awesome fact during recruiting!)
FALL A
ACC 502: Principles of Financial Accounting
Grading the Course: Pass
I think this grade had a lot to do with my professor, who was a super cool and chilled out guy but used a Socratic teaching method that took a lot of adjustment before we really got things. There’s some room for debate in accounting, but this class is based around reading and creating balance sheets and income statements, so it could have used a little more how and a little less why.
BE 502: Applied Microeconomics
Grading the Course: Pass
Again, nice professor, but the course material is exactly the same as an undergraduate microeconomics course. I don’t know why this is a 500-level graduate class. Still, it was a useful refresher, and I sucked at undergraduate econ. (My grade in this may or may not have been much of an improvement.)
STRATEGY 502: Corporate Strategy
Grading the Course: Excellent
There were plenty of times I hated this course, like when the professor called on me two times in one class and twice rebuked me with, “So it’s exactly the opposite of what Patrick said.” But I give it an excellent because this is a good hard-assed course that makes you back up your opinions with solid business thinking. Both professors love to cold call and get in your face on your answer, often reacting dismissively, but that just makes it more of a challenge. So this one is good. It’s also good for identifying the gunners in your section, because they can’t resist the sound of their own voice.
OMS 502: Applied Business Statistics
Grading the Course: Good
A lot like the statistics class you took in undergrad, but extremely well-organized with two very likeable professors. Seriously, the handouts, quizzes and material were perfectly structured. The final, however, was a total brain-melter. We got sucker-punched by that one.
FALL B
FIN 502: Financial Management
Grading the Course: Excellent
This was a weird grade: while our prof for this class was pretty bad, the material was really interesting and useful. I think I may have gotten more out of this class than any of the others, and that was even with The Count. (Long story.) Good stuff for a non-numbers man like myself.
MKT 503: Marketing Management
Grading the Course: Good
Marketing seems like a gooey subject, but this class is all about a structured approach to the topic. It does a good job of it, too: we do have a marketing-school reputation to maintain. I gave it a good because it’s still tough to put a structure on a subjective thing, but I did like the approach.
MO 503: Human Behavior and Organization
Grading the Course: Low Pass
I had to give it the dreaded LP. This was by far the least-favorite course across the MBA 1 class. Every day brought new complaints about this one from my classmates, and we in fact bonded over it. The gist of my complaint: It’s a good idea to teach future managers how to handle difficult interpersonal situations, but it would be a much better approach to teach us tactics for handling those situations instead of creating “awareness” that situations exist. Frankly, we all know that already.
WINTER A
ACC 552: Managerial Accounting
Grading the Course: Good
I had a tough time grasping a lot of the concepts here, but plenty of people have pointed out how useful it is. And I agree: the big point here is cost allocation, and that’s certainly going to drive a lot of management decisions. Hopefully I can get things straight by the time I have to use it.
OMS 552: Operations Management
Grading the Course: Good
I liked this course a lot, and Ross is apparently ranked No. 1 for operations instruction. (That being production efficiency and such.) While the course is really cool and both profs are great, I wonder how much I will use process flow and design. I hope I do, though tech and media are a little less obvious in their need for ops calculations and explorations.
So there you go, readaz: your guide to the Ross core curriculum. The worst part of being done is that I won’t get to take classes anymore where all of my section is in attendance. Bummer.
Come this May I’ll be able to grade MAP as well, but I’m working on that one.
