Day 3: Mumbai and Delhi

Day three and we have another birthday. Hooray! Happy birthday Maya! In honor of your special day, we've included a traditional Indian birthday song in the blog:

Hey Maya, it’s your birthday
We’re gonna eat curry like its your birthday
We’re gonna sip hot chai like its your birthday
You know cos we don’t give a dabawallah cos it’s your birthday!

(Lyrics by Fi'ty Ruppee)

.

.

Maya on the mike

Having spent the first two days of the trip learning about the booming economy and success of “new” India, the theme of day three was “old” India.

We met with the traditional dabbawallah’s of Mumbai in the morning. For the last century dabawallah’s have been responsible for delivering hot, home-made meals for workers throughout the city at lunch time. There operation has become so sophisticated that a couple of years ago, they won six-sigma rating for their success rate of 99.9999%. None of the dabbawallah’s have any real education and many are illiterate. Yet through the simplicity of their system and a strong culture of discipline and duty, they have thrived and earned well-deserved international acclaim. On the day we met them, a crew from Sahara TV was there and a few of us (Prof. Roberts, Jose and Sarah) were interviewed and may even appear on national television!

Sara, Prof. Roberts and Jose being interviewed with the Dabbawallah's by Sahara TV

Before our next meeting we wanted to experience travelling on an Indian train – in the general class components. Mumbai trains are one of the leading causes of accidental deaths in the city. Commuters, desperately trying to find space in the crowded carriages, will often risk their lives by hanging from the sides or even sitting on top of the train. Luckily, we were not travelling in rush hour, so many of us found seats but it still made the London Underground look like the Orient Express in comparison.

Riding the Indian trains in Mumbai

Can anybody spot the tourist?

The final meeting of the day was arguably the best experience of our trip to date: a visit to Asia’s largest slum dwelling. This was an emotional and shocking experience, and words can’t really do it justice. The pictures below give some idea of the poverty we saw. Of Mumbai’s population, 20% live in apartments and houses, 60% live in slums and 20% are homeless. The 60% that live in slums occupy only 13% of the city area. The contrast between the slums we saw and the opulence of other parts of the city is saddening and shameful. Yet we saw a silver lining: thanks to the work of leaders like Jockin Arupatham, President of the National Slum Dwellers Federation, with whom we met, slum dwellers have more opportunities than ever, to get an education, a job and a concrete roof over their heads.

Visiting the slums in Mumbai

We left the slums straight for the airport and our evening flight to Delhi. We got to our hotel in the capital at around 10pm and all retired early, ready for an early start the next day….

Day 2: Mumbai

Day two in Mumbai. First things first, personal announcements. It's Salim's birthday! Hooray! Happy birthday, Salim! We love you, dude...

Salim: 33 years young today

The theme for the day was multinational corporations and finance. We had three meetings. The first was with a large conglomerate called Aditya Birla Group with diverse operations in manufacturing, energy and financial services. Two things were interesting about this company. One, the founder of the firm was a close personal friend of Mahatma Gandhi and has carried forward many of the Mahatma's teachings in the companies values. Two, the company seemed to defy conventional business wisdom (at least what we were taught in winter quarter strategy last year) that value can be added through the combination of multiple business units.

All of us with Aditya Birla Group

The second meeting was with Chandha Kochhar of ICICI Bank. We loved this woman. She was incredibly bright and articulate and gave some of the most interesting answers to our questions about trends in the Indian economy. The take away for us was the phenomenal trends in demographics taking place in India right now; it is the youngest country in the world and over the next twenty years is going to see a staggering growth in its middle class.

Finally, we met with Private Equity firm Warburg Pincus. We met a Principal and an Associate - both very impressive. For the non-finance dummies in the group, the meeting was hard work in places but I think we all left with a much better understanding of the booming private equity industry in India.

Jose: shamelessly exploiting the cheap labor in India

Having finished all the hardcore meetings, we had the rest of the day to relax and have fun. This started with a lot of drinking on the bus (swigging shots of Smirnoff from the bottle) and continued at the restaurant drinking many, many bottles of Kingfisher beer. We started Salim on a course of 33 shots of beer to celebrate his birthday, unfortunately we ran out of steam after about only six shots! The girls of the group painted their hands with mendhi while many others got their palms read. Unfortunately we are not sure the palm reader guy was for real. He seemed to have two standard predictions: all the women will get married, have kids and be successful; all the men will get married, have kids, be successful - and keep a mistress! He knows us so well ;-)

Women: love, family and success predicted by palm reader

Men: will take mistresses according to palm reader

The rest of the night / early morning is a blur to most of us as we write the blog. We went clubbing to probably the most crowded and loud club EVER. For the boring old guys (like yours truly) it proved too much to handle beyond 2am. But the younger kids in the group (Powers, Mittal, Dr Mo) had legs for another three hours of dancing, drinking and lady charming ;-)

Partying in Mumbai

Day 1: Mumbai

And so after a combined total of more than 650 hours of travel time—that’s in transit to the airport, sitting in the airport, sitting on a plane, trying to sleep while babies cried and kicked in the seat behind you, and finally, of course, sitting in the not-so-free flowing traffic which is so characteristic of Mumbai, India—the participants of the GSB India Study Trip all arrived safely and on time.

One great way to think of this is that 650 hours equates to about four months of lost productivity from a collective GSB mind, which we’ll of course remind you, represents a prominent and influential future world business leader—or something like that. Of course, arriving on time didn’t always necessarily mean arriving with enough time to sleep more than a few short hours before our first fully packed day of meetings. Not to be deterred by a lack of sleep though, all India Study Trippers were on time in the lobby of the ITC Sheraton in Parel, dressed in our finest business regalia, and herded onto our VIP transport vehicle.

Fifteen minutes later, whilst stuck in chaotic rush hour Mumbai traffic, we hear the bus driver shout out nine reassuring words, “does anyone here know how to drive a bus?” Unfortunately, this was not a joke. The driver couldn’t get the bus into first gear because the clutch had broken. Within moments, a tow truck appeared dragging our bus to the side of the road, allowing us to disembark and search for alternative transportation. Prashant and Tarun and the other leaders did an amazing job hailing down half a dozen auto rickshawwallah’s whilst dozens of locals standing outside the shops stared and pointed at us in amazement.

“Does anyone here know how to drive a bus?”

Our first meeting of the day was with Suendra Hiranandani, managing director of the Hiranandani Group, the country’s largest real estate development firm. We were given a magnificent tour of their primary development, Powai, containing residential and commercial space including its own lake, hospital, school, restaurants, retail stores, bowling alley and most importantly go-kart track. Mr Hiranandani gave us an overview of his operations and spoke on real estate trends in India, pushing forward world-class construction standards, and starting an empire from only a few thousand dollars twenty years ago. Very impressive stuff.

Visiting a call centre operations hub; part of the Hiranandani empire

Kishore Biyani, our second meeting, is fondly described as the Sam Walton of India. He has led a large conglomeration of various businesses over the last 20 years. His self-described mission is to provide everything that consumers want to buy. It started with the first branded retail clothing line in India, Pantaloon, and has now expanded to include many other businesses and products, even financial services). He also believes that future of business lies in what he calls the “creative economy”, as opposed to a past that was steeped in routine and process optimization. He believes that as technology automates more processes in our lives, a premium is going to be placed on creativity and originality, and the market will respond correspondingly.

The Group with Kishore Biyani

The final meeting of the day was with Shabana Azmi, a famous Bollywood actress, former member of India Parliament and ongoing activist on issues such as education and gender equality. She was highly inspiring, articulating personal stories of her motivation and her vision for the role of Government, media and non-profit sectors in tackling India’s many social issues.

Shabana Azmi: Bollywood actress, Politician and Activist

The evening ended for many with a trip to a local club - the Mumbai version of Tao in New York. Our top heavy boy / girl ratio almost prevented us getting in but fortunately we were in possession of the ‘skeleton key’ (a.k.a. British accent) which as any English man knows, opens any door. For the rest of the group, an early night recovering from jet lag proved to be a more attractive option...

When Lior gets that crazy look in his eyes, you know one drink ain't going to be enough

Welcome to the GSB India Study Trip

Please follow us over ten days in December and January as 25 students, 4 SOs and 3 professors travel across India. We will be spending time in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore, meeting with many fascinating business, government and non-profit leaders. We are tremendously excited to learn more about the rich and fascinating history, cluture and economy of India and hope very much that you enjoy reading our blog.

The best looking study trip ever?....

Ha ha...We wish!