Chaos = India

There's a term in Hindi, Jugaard, that pretty much sums up what living in India is like. Everything you need to do takes several extra steps, extra trips, extra paperwork, and many more passport photos than you could ever imagine.

Jugaard means basically by any means possible (legal or otherwise), using whatever you have on hand to get it done, usually at the last minute. This goes against every fiber of my being. I'm German and Scottish, both countries with tremendous craftsmanship, cultures that require absolute perfection, work environments that prize meeting deadlines, staying under budget, and getting the job done well.

Politics is a big deal here. More than any other country I have experienced. Respect is expected immediately, not earned as it is in the US. I am not political at all. I sometimes treat peons better than CEOs because they get no respect from anyone else. All the security guards love me, because I greet them when I come and go and ask in my very broken Hindi about their day. Due to the caste system (which, while illegal, is still very part of the culture), many people are "too good" to clear out their own wastebaskets or make their own tea. (They would never last in a US startup. At BuzzBoltMEDIA, a web consulting firm I co-founded in Chicago, everyone, including the two co-founders had the take the trash out once a week, vacuum the carpets and clean the bathrooms.) I have worked with a number of CEOs here and I am supposed to call them by their first name, with the "ji" at the end, a Hindi word that denotes respect, so if my boss' name was Sumit, I was supposed to call him Sumitji. I forget this all the time and insult people. I've taken to calling everyone Sir, even though I don't like it.

I have one superior that calls me "Boss" and I just love him. He treats me like an equal and I feel respected and appreciated for the work I do. I try to do my very best work for him. I'll go the extra mile. He's one of the very few leaders I've had the pleasure to work with here. For me, it's never been about the money, it always been about making impact, seeing the impact and having someone thank me for the good job I've done, nothing more. Another boss chastised me for making a public display of how happy I was with a worker's performance. He told that that will decrease his productivity. It didn't.

My first lunch in the basement at a company I worked for, I got my tray of food and went to sit with the staff on my team. They spent the entire time speaking in Hindi. Since it was clear to me that I was not to be part of the conversation, I never went back and ate at my desk. This made people think I was aloof and unfriendly. I'm not. People here isolated themselves from me. I have no Indian friends. All the people close to me are expats. I trust them. Most of them, except one Australian, never stole anything from me. But Indians have repeatedly stolen from me and laugh when I confront them. It's possible some of it comes from the fact that they think all foreigners in India are rich. I'm far from it. It's possible it goes back to the Colonial era and I'm just getting payback... Sticking with expats make me less homesick. They understand just how isolated I am -- we all are, not part of the culture we're immersed in, lost, not knowing how to do even the most basic things like getting cooking gas for our homes.

Chaos is everywhere, from the way people drive in my overcrowded city with no infrastructure, to the lack of electricity, and a wise man I met forecasted that in five years neighbors will be fighting over access to water. I believe him. Gurgaon has no water - they steal it from the poorest sections of Old Gurgaon to fill pools in the high rise luxury apartment complexes. There are no sidewalks and where they are, many small wallas (shopkeepers) have put up lean-to stalls to sell their tea and snacks. Pedestrians are forced to walk in the streets along side cows, trucks, buses, autorickshaws, bike rickshaws, cars and all sorts of other vehicles. People will ride their motorcycles, with the husband driving, a child perched on the gas tank, the mother on the back riding sidesaddle holding an infant in her arms. This seems to me to be one of the most dangerous of options in the already chaotic driving everyone does.

But I still love it here. Each morning we have breakfast ready to go along with our morning CNN news coverage of the world. My clothes are cleaned and ready for dressing - no ironing to be done. Our house keeper would do it for me. She has a good life working for me. They don't live in an unheated, non-air conditioned space on the roof - she has one bedroom in our apartment that she shares with her husband and infant daughter. Some maids in India have to sleep on the floor. We share our food with them and they are thanked all the time for their service to our household. I'm grateful for them and the energy they bring to my house. Outside it may be chaos, but within the walls of my home, we have peace and quiet, love and joy. When we leave the house, in spite of the chaos, India is blindingly beautiful - the brilliantly colored sarees and salwar khameez the women wear, the beautiful peacocks and brightly colored birds, the cows circumventing the cars in traffic (they always have the right of way!), the cute little feral pigs rutting around in the fields, even the packs of wild dogs with their adorable puppies are all part of the magic that is India.

Going Broke in a Third World Country

It's remarkable to think of going broke in a third world country. Because I look every bit American, people here assume I have a fortune hidden somewhere. I don't.

I was reading this article about Dubai (http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/the-dark-side-of-dubai-1664368.html) and I was very much struck by the homeless expat stuck there while her husband languished in debtors prison. Expats are vulnerable to the unique and particular laws of the countries they live in and the vagaries of how they are enforced.

People here can't understand why I'm broke. I'm told by some folks that I'm an expensive asset. I make less than half what I made in the States, but a lot more than the typical Indian office worker and pretty much the same as an Indian at my level. But some of my bills are different than Indians. Here's a breakdown of my expenses, bearing in mind, most expats live a far better life than me, being paid in foreign currency. (Okay, while I realize most people won't publicly declare their finances, I'm doing this as a service to those thinking of moving here and thinking they can live a cheap life here and save a bunch of cash to bring home with them. Seeing what a regular expat's expenses are would have been very useful to me before I moved here.)

MY EXPAT LIVING COSTS IN GURGAON

• Rent of 3 bedroom ground floor apartment = 30,000 rupees a month (US$ 615)
• Car & driver service = 25,000 rupees a month (US$ 511)
• Will's school = 20,000 rupees a month (US$ 408)
• Electricity = 12,000 rupees a month (US$ 245)
• High Speed Internet = 6,000 rupees a month (US$ 122)
• Housekeeper = 5,000 rupees a month (US$ 102)
  NOTE: Her family of three also gets free room and board.
• Yu Yu's Mobile = 4,000 rupees a month (US$ 81) 
• My Mobile = 3,000 rupees a month (US$ 61)
• Will's Mobile - 500 rupees a month (US$ 10)
• Dog food = 2,500 rupees a month (US$ 51)
  NOTE: We have three dogs.
• Satellite TV = 1,000 rupees a month (US$ 20)
• Food & Entertainment = 20,000 rupees a month (US$ 204)
  NOTE: For four adults, 1 infant.

TOTAL = 128,000 rupees a month (US$ 2,412)

Sad, huh? :'-(

Liquor is expensive. We rarely go out for dinner, a ritual we miss. Will and I had a standing date every Friday night when we lived back home, for a nice meal in a fine restaurant when we lived back home, and I really miss that. Having wine is a rare event because the cheapest bottle of imported wine (think the 2-Buck Chuck from Trader Joe's) is 800 rupees (US$ 16.33). A decent bottle of Austalian or Chilean wine will cost you 1200; American or European will be twice as much, so we never have wine anymore. We rent our ACs, so they're 20,000 each for the season. I have to pay for household repairs, which cannot be planned ahead of time. Will's UK exams are an additional 100,000 rupee cost we pay in the final school quarter each year. Did I mention that we have practically no furniture in our house?

Plus there are taxes that I can deduct but corporations make it very difficult to know what can be deducted pre-tax and what is taxable. It helps if you know and trust someone who is an accountant here. Companies won't help you.

This also makes me even more sensitive to being cheated. Just because I'm white doesn't make me rich. Just because I'm white, doesn't make me stupid. Everyone tries to make a little extra off the foreigners because it's easy. We don't bargain at all, don't know how, actually. We usually go into a store and pay the price on the tag. Here, there are no tags - when you ask the price, a shop keeper has the freedom to charge what he thinks the customer can bear and if your skin is white, expect that to be ten times higher than what a local would pay.

Will is looking at colleges and wants to go back to the States or the UK. I've been trying to convince him to get his bachelor's degree here because it will cost less than his expensive private international school I'm paying for now. He was planning to take a gap year to help pay the bills, but that's just stupid. Like I said, I somehow manage to make things with work. There were rough times when we were kids, but we still spent each summer, all summer, away at horse camp or girl scout camp and stuff. I asked her recently how they managed to provide us with all those expensive experiences and she said, "We robbed Peter to pay Paul." Eventually everyone gets paid...

The article above was written two years ago, and depressing as it is, it has to be far worse now than in 2009. Expats have been fleeing Dubai, and the economy has hit expats particularly hard - we're expensive assets - as Indian employers like to remind me (even though I know LOTS of Indians at my level making more money than I do). It's easy to lose the expats when revenues fall and it doesn't undermine the status quo like it would if an Indian leader in the same position were to be let go. The dynamics are different. I've watched whole teams leave at once from a company with the loss of their team leader. Expats don't build fiefdoms like locals do. Simply don't support their visa renewal and they disappear. Quickly, with minimal fuss. We're at the mercy of our employer. We can't just quit our job and look for something else - we have to go home if we lose our jobs or want to accept a new position. It makes it hard to accept another position because the cost to join is high, making it unattractive for an employer. For me, it would require sending my family back to New York for a week - two round trip tickets to New York are around 200,000 rupees, and there's a risk that the visa won't be approved. Most companies don't want to take that risk. They don't have to, in a country with a billion other people.

I've wondered whatever happened to that homeless woman because I could easily see myself in her position. I'm lucky to work for a company that supports me, maybe not with the salary I'd prefer, but in many other ways. They help me negotiate rents and services, helps me figure out how to extricate myself from legal issues or get payments from people who owe me money. These things they don't have to do for locals, either. Being able to travel and see how other expats live helps tremendously as well - it provides perspective and helps me appreciate everything the company I work for does for me.

Follow me on twitter (@jeanneleez) or foursquare, or friend me on Facebook. I usually post there when I travel. Cheers. :-)

Response to SFGate's Coverage of Secretary of State Clinton's Recent Visit to Myanmar

I love SFGate, but I was incensed when I read the glowing report of hope and resurrection that the Clinton visit would supposedly cause. The issue is the economic sanctions. Time to allow Burma to find its way and engage with the rest of the world. Read more:http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/11/28/EDQ51M533L.DTL#ixzz1fSjgAU91

MY RESPONSE:

I'm an American expat living in India and I have just returned from two trips inside Burma in October and November of last year. True, there have been marked changes over the past TWO years, since the worst natural disaster, Cyclone Nargis hit and devastated the country. Once the rice basket for Southeast Asia, there were rumors of impending famine. The leaders may have not felt the food shortages, but the average citizen had to pay far more for their rice while the government continued to export as usual.

In those two years, yes, some things have changed, but not much has changed for the average Burmese man or women, and particularly hardest hit are their seniors and their children. The only thing that US economic sanctions have done is make the military junta richer, while closing off economic opportunity for its citizens. I worked closely with business people trying to build infrastructure, but there is no manufacturing capability in-country. Automobiles have not been imported into the country since 2001, and only recently have they allowed imports, at a nearly 160% duty. Three years ago, a simple cellphone cost a citizen over $3,000 - the cost now is around $125 for simple Chinese phone and prepaid SIM card, but the average income of the office workers I worked with was close to $100/month. Cellular service is spotty in urban centers, virtually non-existent in rural areas. Without electricity, telephone service, internet access, how can any country develop trade outside its own borders?

No US citizen is allowed to sell and deploy solar panels to enable villagers to have affordable lights in their homes where there is no electricity - it is considered country building - what we are already doing in countries like Afghanistan and Iraq, yet this country, which has never incited any violence against our country, is forbidden to be helped. 

I met a 12 year old boy who works as a waiter in a restaurant in Yangon. He has a 4th grade education, both of his parents are dead from AIDS, and he lives in the alley behind the restaurant. What are his prospects? There are many, many more children, more orphans, just trying to survive, with no marketable skills. I fear for their future. There is a lost generation and we are failing them. US sanctions are a major part of this problem.

Han, my waiter. He was there both times I visited 19th Street in Yangon. My companion told me not to expect him to be there the next time I visit. These boys don't last long, succumbing to drugs or human trafficking

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/11/28/EDQ51M533L.DTL#ixzz1fSigHjjo

Adventures in Visaland

I was at the FRRO again on Tuesday. We started the visa renewal process in January, providing all the paperwork required for the visa renewal that had to be done by the company. All they had to do was print it out on stationery or stamp paper, sign it, stamp it and give it to me. That took until the third week of April.

Paperwork involved:

1. Cover letter requesting visa renewal from company
2. Visa renewal form
3. Statement of Undertaking
4. 1% Foreign Employee Certification
5. Form 16s (Like W2s in the US) - all years in residence
6. Tax Returns - all years in residence
7. Rent Agreement
8. Proof of Residence (Telephone bill)
9. Employee contract
10. Pay Slips  - all years in residence
11. Passport copies with all visas  - all years in residence
12. Passport photos

My visa expired in May. You are supposed to file for a renewal 60 days prior to expiration. Got reprimanded because HR couldn't get their stuff done. Blamed it on them, and the FRRO officer seemed satisfied. I was given a two month extension. AFter that we went back every week or two to check on the process. When we got to two weeks prior to the new extension, they were telling us to come back, without providing any written proof that we were in process for the full year nor any kind of documentation proving to my company that we were still legal. We kept returning, trudging up four flights of stairs (the elevator has not worked in the four years I've been here), just to wait around for an hour or two and told to come back next week or ten days. Our visas expired and they did not seem to find that unusual. I needed to travel out of the country, but there was no way to leave the country without a valid visa. My company was slamming me, as if it was me stalling the process.

I took a colleague to the Home Ministry who had a sister who used to work there. She gave us the name of an officer still working there. We restarted the process again with this particular officer and within 3 hours we were out of there with another 2 months, which allowed me to leave the country.

On Monday this week, my son went to the FRRO and discovered the visas were finally back from Chandigarh. They refused to give them to him because I had to be present. On Tuesday, I arrived and was told to come back tomorrow because I didn't have my son with me. I started to cry, telling him how this was causing so much trouble for me at  work and that didn't seem to phase them, then I launched into a tirade about how my son was in school and a minor and how as his parent I should be able to pick it up myself. This seemed to work, and they processed his visa along with mine. Thank f*cking god… The entire process took from January to September. Nine months of work to get a one-year visa. Unbelievable.

Indian Visa Extension

As I was leaving, heading down the stairs, a young asian woman was walking up, and shrieked, "Oh! I know you! You write a blog, right?" Then she looked a little hesitant, probably because of my perturbed look on my face. She said that she read my blog and recognized me from the photos there… it was the first time anyone recognized me in person, but it was really gratifying. She said she read it all the time, which made me feel great about the effort I'd made in posting my experiences. :-)

After completing my Indian visa, I had to head over to the Embassy of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, which is located right behind the US Embassy in Delhi. Yu Yu, being a Burmese national and the daughter of the ex-counsel of Myanmar in Kolkata, had connections. Americans have great difficulty entering Myanmar, unless under a recognized tour group. I was looking for a multiple entry business visa. A rare gift to an American. She helped me coordinate my application. I was told to bring a copy of my passport, letters of invitation from the show organizers, and a couple of photos. That's it. I was told during my conversation at the Embassy that I couldn't get a multiple entry this time, but my next visit would not be an issue (I'm scheduled to visit Myanmar in October and again in November).

Myanmar Business Visa

We returned at 4:30 for a completed visa. Took less than 5 hours. Now that's efficiency. :-) Two visas in one day.

I'm lucky to be American. There are few countries that actively bar Americans, most don't require visas. Indians have a lot more difficulty acquiring visas for business and I am sure most of it is racial profiling. Brazil is one place where we are required visas, myself included, but we were not received the same way. I was traveling with two Indian colleagues and we all had lots of extra bags since we were hand carrying all the products to be displayed at the show, probably 50 kgs a piece. I was warmly greeted, welcomed into the country and told to enjoy my stay. The same immigrations officer said absolutely nothing to my colleagues. We picked up all our baggage and headed out towards the exit. Two heavily armed guards approached the three of us, pointed at both men, and told them to come in for questioning. Me, standing in the middle, was told I was free to leave. We had exactly the same mountain of bags, but I'm a white American.  I waited an hour and a half for them to finally be released.

A CEO I work with was refused an American business visa because he's only 26 and couldn't possibly be the head of a 200-person development company. The mountain of paperwork he had to produce is worse than what I need for my visa renewals here, including bank statements going back years. I find this an invasion of privacy.

Most people don't travel internationally, but having experienced this over time and region, it is getting harder and harder to secure visas in a timely manner from any country (except Myanmar - thank you!). Visa reform needs to be looked at across the globe. In this time, where information can be found at your fingertips, why can't most of these processes be automated and online? Travisa in New York City does a good job in the US processing Indian visas (it only takes a day there, but 9 months here). You go online, set up an appointment, all required paperwork is listed in detail, head there, submit your papers, and by 5:30, 6:00 PM, you are notified online whether or not it has been approved. Simple.

I'm looking forward to Myanmar. Next week, I'm heading to Dubai. When I travel, I usually tweet (@jeanneleez) and foursquare my experiences. Feel free to join me via the "interwebs". See ya. :-)

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An expat said, frustrated by the inability to get things done, that she "would end up being the first incident of violence in the workplace involving a foreigner". LOL. Yeah, we've all felt like we were going to "go postal" at some point. :-)

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Social Media Mashup Lets You Post Simultaneously to LI, FB, Twitter & Blogger. Nice. Needs more properties, though... www.socialblend.com

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Heading to Singapore in a few weeks. Any suggestions on places to go? Been to Clarke Quay, Low Pa Sat... Where to shop for cool stuff?