JC in India

Now this could be construed as being critical. Let’s be clear at the outset, there’s no right or wrong way of doing things in this sphere. The situations I talk about are just some examples of experiences I’ve had, but any with negative tones pale into the background compared to all the positive ones. However no tale of life in India would be complete without some reference to the bureaucracy that exists within this country and so this is simply my brief attempt at that.

Just because we Brit’s are probably more relaxed in our process and formality, while the Indians are much more process orientated and bureaucratic, it doesn’t make one of us right and the other wrong. We are just different.

India carries a reputation for its red tape and bureaucracy. Try getting a visa to visit and it is likely you will have had your first taste of such. Years ago, I was turned away from a visa office because I could not exactly replicate an old signature in my passport, even though it was blatantly obvious it was me in the picture. I had to go away and come back a week later having tried on numerous forms until I had finally managed to reproduce an exact copy.

I’m not sure where this stems from – it could be rooted in colonial days and the emergence from such when the country had to find its own way in the world and quickly. Maybe, maybe not. Either way, the country is still a sea of red tape and despite many political attempts to change this little has happened. It seems the country and its leaders know it is like this, but accept it as so, “c’est la vie”.

Barack Obama wrote of the country’s historical bureaucracy as an impediment in its progress: “Despite its genuine economic progress, though, India remained a chaotic and impoverished place: largely divided by religion and caste, captive to the whims of corrupt local officials and power brokers, hamstrung by a parochial bureaucracy that was resistant to change.”

It could drive the best of us demented. If you are highly-strung and easily wound up by needless (well, I should say needless as an individual opinion) admin, paperwork and process then maybe India isn’t for you. As I have said before to be comfortable here, it is important to go with the flow and embrace it. I am not going to incite change, nor revolutionise decades long ways of working and ingrained behaviour. I have no desire to change the world in such a way; I merely want to enjoy it while I am here.

And there sure is a lot to enjoy….!

However, that does involve coping with the often (and let us be polite here) pointless admin on occasion. 

I suspect it comes from a natural tendency to adhere to rules and a culture of deference to authority. What the boss say goes, and there is a very strong respect culture for elders and leaders here. That therefore inclines people to accept what is mandated, which in turn translates to a usual acceptance of the black and white nature of rules, and seeming unwillingness to challenge such.

After pretty much 6 months here I have experienced some of these little nuances to life on more than a few occasions.

My first such incidence was when there was a crisis about the fact that I had not retained my boarding card from my first flight out to Delhi in January. It turns out that all boarding cards from business trips have to be retained and provided to our travel team to ‘close’ the itinerary and thus conclude any expenses associated with the travel. Given I was not aware of this when I first came here, I just binned the boarding card as usual. This turned out to be quite problematic and the team here kept asking me on numerous occasions if I had it or could find it as they needed it… It got a bit frustrating after a while, given there was no way to get this and my attitude of ‘look I obviously got on the flight because here I am, and someone met me off the aircraft’ did not seem to appease their persistence! I think finally after 6 months though I’ve heard the last of that one by now – I hope.

Yesterday the power cable for my laptop was not working and my laptop would not gain charge. No big deal. Can I just get a new cable please? If only it were so easy… the IT chap came with a new cable, found it worked and then promptly left my office with the new cable in hand. Bearing in mind I’m about to embark on two weeks of travel I kind of need my laptop to get charge. But no, until I’d sent the appropriate email to the appropriate person specifying the problem and the need I couldn’t have the cable. So email chains later, with appropriate “Dear so and so” and “Kind regards” (emails are still very formally written here), eventually a new cable arrived. Although apparently it is only a temporary one, and a new one will be here in 5 days. Any assertion from me that a cable is a cable and I didn’t mind keeping this one fell on deaf ears. Apparently, they will bring me the new one next week, even though I will be on the other side of the planet then… But hey, my temporary cable gets to come on an adventure anyway and I am sure it is very happy to get out the office for a bit!

I am actually in the middle of a spell of work trips currently, with a 2-month period where three key events are occurring which will culminate in next week’s slots conference in Seattle. It’s meant that I’ve been on the road a lot, but also meant that the company has had to make travel arrangements for me and payments of bills for the events too.

Booking travel here is a completely new ballgame compared to my last role (“Rob, shall we go to China to see Hainan? Sure. Ok, look at this flight I’ve found shall we go on that one? Which seat?” Job done). Now it is “Dear Sir, please can I have approval for…”, and then follows a pyramid of approvals finally getting the nod to often find the flights intended have sold out and greater costs need to be incurred to get a different one. 

But again, let’s be clear this isn’t criticism – it’s just a different and more controlled way of working. In fairness, such control prevents excessive spend and does clamp down on a more lax approach to spending. Yes, on occasion it takes longer and causes good fares to be lost, but it may be this approach in the long run actually saves money due to more scrutiny. As I’ve said it’s not that it’s wrong, it’s just different.

In that vein, there does seem to be a particularly strong focus on the spending of money (which is of course fair). The events I attend carry a cost, and being outside of India requires payment in different currencies and to non-Indian companies. Let the games begin…

Transferring money outside of India is much harder than most countries. There is a real thing here about keeping currency in the country. Personally, I have to go to quite some lengths to get money transferred from my HSBC India account to my HSBC U.K. account. You would think it were easy, and that is what I believed the strengths of HSBC to be – that’s why I bank with them due to my generally more international lifestyle. But oh no! 

For the first 4 months of being here, transferring funds back to the U.K. required a physical form being completed within the branch, and had to be accompanied by payslips (proving the money was legally acquired) and all the documentation proving my rights to live in India. In fairness in May this process has changed and can actually now be done online. Except that doing it online means you pay 5% tax on the amount you send overseas. Which adds up over time if you transfer part of your wages home each month, as I need to. This tax can be reclaimed at the end of the financial year via a tax return but it still means the money has gone for a year until claimed back, and given the bureaucracy around it I am nervous to rely on this for sure.

However, back to the original point, these events need paying for, and the process to send money offshore to a company that isn’t already in the system is – let’s just say – challenging. Aside from all the company documentation required, I have had to go as far as proving that the company we are paying for event attendance did actually advertise the conference, the insinuation being a need to prove it was a real event and not just a scam organisation. Given the fact that I have now already been to two of these events (the organisers thankfully know me and are flexible thank goodness), I was tempted to offer to send photos of me there, along with the 1,000 other people to prove it actually was a real event. However, I held myself back and dutifully searched through my email history to find such a marketing email from them…

It is also handy that I do understand a small amount of French as one of the companies legal documents of registration are in French (what with them being a French company and all that…). My claims that “they’re French, their documents are in French, so it’s just the way it is, and they’re obviously real” did not land well. So one fine morning, while sat in an office in our airport in Cebu I spent an hour translating their legal registration docs and bank account evidence to English to give comfort to our finance team that they really did exist and were entitled to be paid in confidence. (And for the record I didn’t touch the wine that was on the desk… don’t know, didn’t ask).

Let us follow a common sense approach (I did actually make the statement which also didn’t go down that well), as the company is the sole organising entity for a major international event. But no, we have to document everything to the finite level in order to process the payment.

Still, it’s done and to be fair maybe they’ve been burnt in the past. Honestly, it is frustrating as it’s just sheer adherence to policy without an ability to digress at all in the light of common sense. However, it is the system here, and not in any way the fault of one individual in the wheel. They are doing their best, and their job, and on a few occasions I have had to keep myself in check to remind myself of this.

It may drive us up the wall at times, but I have found it much easier to just work with it and to be tolerant and understanding that this way of scrutiny is the way here. And that’s fine, it’s not right, it’s not wrong, it’s just the way it is. Everywhere is different and the world is better because of that.

In a few hours I set off to the USA for a week (one of them there conference things to meet lots of airlines – 53 meetings requested over three days – going to be busy), and then home to Blighty for a week off. The itinerary of this coming trip involves 11 flights. By the time I get back to Delhi on the 4th July I’ll have already done 48 flights this year.

Honestly, while I love travel and that lifestyle I really do miss the peace of the pandemic. It doesn’t need saying that of course I do not miss the pandemic itself and would never wish the worst of that on anyone. However, the tranquillity that was forced upon my life was something I initially resented, but after a while came to really value. I turned 50 during the pandemic and in my own mind think of that two-year period as an interval in my life. Halfway point maybe if I am fortunate enough to live long enough to receive the Kings letter. It was a couple of years of rest and recovery and of building local relationships and friendships that so often I’ve had to neglect due to my role and career choice.

Life is busy again. It is often a whirlwind and that’s why it’s all the more important not to get stressed by small things that don’t matter. It’s not important in the big scheme of things that more forms need filling in, that proof of seemingly obvious answers needs gathering. It is what it is.

It is like relaxing into that seat on the plane – you just have to go with the flow and learn to live with it. Life does not have to be about obstacles or problems all the time. We may be busy, we may be quiet, we may be frustrated with admin, we may be wishing for other things. But learning to be at peace with it is the only way to be at peace overall.

Now, where did I put that paperwork…!?

Postscript update re Penny the Pigeon….

Sadly, when I returned from Asia last week after 10 days away, there was no sign of Penny, or any evidence of the eggs having been there save for a few small remaining feathers. I can only assume the eggs were stolen and Penny gave up her attempts for this season. That said, there are still lots of pigeons around so I am sure she is out there flying around in her flock somewhere keeping her eye on my pack of five street dogs, and variety of cows that are (thankfully) still roaming the streets outside.