Ohio and India

Well, I am home in Connecticut again, after three weeks on the road. First week in San Francisco, next week in Ohio for the Case Western Reserve U. board of trustees meeting, and the last week in Mumbai.

Ohio was cold and snowy. I stayed in the old house, which is now emptied of many furnishings and people since Paul and Laura moved into their house in December. It was a bit lonely and empty, but a good chance to do some measurements and plan renovations, which I now hope to start in the late summer. The new house is cozy and warm and it was great to see Paul and Laura and the kids, even though I spent most of the week working.

From Ohio, on to Mumbai - one snowstorm in Chicago, one missed connection in London, one unplanned 11-hour layover at Heathrow, a re-scheduling of cars and hotels in Mumbai, and a 10-hour flight via India's Jet Airways later, and we have gone from 9 degrees F and snowing to 32 degrees C, sticky and humid.

My experience on Jet Airways, by the way, though unplanned, was superb. Flat bed-seats, great service, extremely courteous staff - I compare them very favorably to larger, more well-known carriers to India. I would fly Jet over British Airways to India any day based on this one flight!

Mumbai - and India in general - is bursting with energy. All the nervous talk you read in the press about overheating the economy is dismissed with a wave of the hand by the Indian bankers and businesspeople you meet. Sure, there will be ups and downs - the Bombay Stock Exchange (or SENSEX) dropped about 500 points last week due to the jitters around the world about China - but most Indians feel their time has come and are creating new business opportunities everywhere. It is an exciting time to be working in India!

One of the biggest barriers India will face is the need for new infrastructure to support this explosive growth. While things like Internet access, telecoms and air travel (domestic and international) are pretty good, more basic stuff like electricity, roads and traffic are a nightmare. I calculate I spent about half my working hours in India this week in meetings and the other half sitting in traffic. Mumbai is bad, Hyderabad is about the same, and Bangalore takes chaos and gridlock to a whole new level. The view shown in this picture was pretty typical of Mumbai traffice, except for the fact there are no motorbikes or motorized rickshaws in the picture. These latter are miniscule three-wheeled vehicles powered by a 2-cycle engine, designed to seat the driver in front and two passengers with no room to spare in the rear. While ordinary cars are often (but not always) found in lanes of traffic, these (along with the motorbikes) seem to be designed to fill every interstitial space in the traffic matrix, which then operates according to a mysterious set of rules that I have yet to decipher.

One conundrum that caught my attention was the signs that are often found on the back of brilliantly decorated trucks, which say something like: 'Blow horn please' or 'horn OK please'. Most people seem to think this invitation to make noise relates to the truck driver's inability to see what is around him as there are no mirrors. But since basically every vehicle seems to be wildly and randomly honking anyway, it does not seem as though it would be very instructive to the driver for yet one more vehicle to add to the cacophony.

Power failures are also common in India. During the week I was there, there were two major power outages affecting millions of people in Mumbai and Western Maharashtra province. Signs like the one in the picture, warning people not to climb out of stalled elevators, are thus common. Fortunately, the power outage did not affect my trip nor was I stuck in an elevator between floors, although after seeing this I was more inclined to use the stairs than before!

Anyway, I am home again (finally!) in CT and it is good to be here. Michael is also home for a week for spring break, although he will be spending it mostly with his friends on a skiing holiday in Vermont. Nice to see him, even for a brief while and we will see if we can get a 'guest blog' out of him while he's home!