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Laurie Efman Chris Wassenaar Joi Faison Chris Knight

 

Saturday, May 26, 2007

My Group Took Up All Of Friday's Space

[Joi]

Hello again kind readers. It seems that the short novel authored by my teammates was enough reading for the day of Friday, thus, I will include my Friday and Saturday experiences in what I hope to be an relatively short read.

It was a good two days. It was hot. I ate and slept. The End.

No, I’m kidding.

Yesterday, my group took the wonderful journey with our entrepreneur in rural Chennai for the in-depth interview. I stayed with the class to participate in the daily activities and give a presentation about Georgia State University to the Great Lakes Institute of Management. In a way, the decision worked out quite favorably because the car ride to rural Chennai could only hold 3 team members and my tummy was still recovering from the previous day’s plight, hence the close proximity of a somewhat familiar bathroom held its own incentive to surrender my place with the team.

First, we went to IIT, the Indian Institute of Technology, which has been nicknamed the Indian Silicon Valley. We have been told that those who do not get into IIT have Harvard as a backup choice. Upon arrival to the campus, I noticed that the buildings were not…um, how shall I say….”pretty”. They looked as if they were placed in the middle of a sparse forest with dirt roads and it had been abandoned for about 15 years. I thought, “Is this the illustrious IIT? It looks as if no one goes here.” Ah, but looks are indeed, INDEED deceiving. Many great things take place beyond those dusty brown walls. I was absolutely floored by the presentation on the Institute’s innovations and technological advancements. Can we say humility? One example that really impressed me was the health machine that hooked up to the computer and could connect the doctor and the patient in rural areas. This machine could monitor the heartbeat, with audio, and check the temperature, blood pressure, and a few other things. This way, the doctor could have some basic information about the patient and possible form a diagnosis. We met with leaders and a few students behind the programs and I know I have said this before, but I will say it again - I was EXTRA super duper impressed by their knowledge and sincere drive to uplift rural India. 

Afterwards, we met with a printing businessman for lunch and toured his printing factory. Then, we went to meet with the students and teachers of Great Lakes Institute of Management. I was supposed to give a presentation about Georgia State University and how entrepreneurship is taught in the U.S. .I was a bit nervous, but I felt okay because Jim helped with the presentation. So, I get to the podium….and my pictures do not show on the PowerPoint. I had to wing it, wing it real strong, and the audience seemed to like it. Soon after that, we mingled with the students and invited them to come to the hotel for more networking the following evening.

Now, it’s Saturday and we actually have a “free day”- whatever that is supposed to mean. I have no concept of time anymore, days blur, and I have accepted that fact that I seem to have left my sleep in Atlanta. Honestly, I do not remember doing so much work….and in some strange, sleepless delusion, I like it. Thus, the “free day” included a tour to a Hindu temple, church, bronze museum, and power shopping through the streets of Chennai Initially, I was frustrated by the shopping because the rigshaw drivers would not take us to where we wanted. We think this is because we caught the rides from the hotel and the drivers just took us to places where they could get kickbacks. But, we did manage to go a few places. I’m trying to get something really sweet for my mother-in-law because I love her a lot and she gave me money to get her something special. I also wanted to get gifts for my family and friends, but I am on a really, “no really let’s no joke because I have to feed my body” type of budget. Yet, I hope I can squeeze in a few nice items for the loved ones.

With the shopping marathon over, I showered and wore a nice sari to impress the Indian students, but everyone else wore jeans and t-shirts, so I felt a bit out of place. But, never the mind, it was getting late in the evening and the tiredness was again creeping up on me. I had to call it a night a little early because at 4:30 a.m., we have to be ready and packed for the train ride to Bangalore. Like I said before, there is no sleep for me here in India, but I am alert enough to express my gratitude to the wonderful city of Chennai. Thank you for your humid weather, highly intelligent and energetic movers and shakers, and our in-depth meeting with the entrepreneur. I hope will we meet again someday. Next stop- Bangalore.

In India, Bats Drive The Cars

[Chris Knight , 2:32 PM]

I’m pretty sure everyone on this trip has mentioned the traffic situation in India in their writings at least once.  It’s so hard to truly describe though… until it hit me.  I realized that we cannot call what is on the roads in India traffic.  Too many images associated with American traffic pop up in a reader’s mind.  As we were driving to our rural interview yesterday morning, our driver was especially crazy.  I mean he was really driving like a bat out of Hell and that’s when it came to me.  Bats!  It’s the perfect way to relate what is on the road in India to someone sitting at his or her desk back in Georgia.  Traffic in India is like going into a cave with 1.1 billion bats in it and turning a bright light on.  To us, it seems like chaos, but to them, it’s just what happens.  Like the swarm of bats, drivers here use a sort of echolocation (sight is apparently not required to obtain a drivers license).  There are no blinkers, no right of way, and no real traffic laws (the stop lights have become irrelevant).  Instead, drivers honk their horns for everything.  They honk to turn, honk to pass., to warn some one that they are passing, to tell an oncoming car to get out of the way even though they are in the wrong lane, not the opposite driver.  Once I swear our driver was laying on the horn just to announce to a couple of sleeping cows by the road that he was accelerating.  But it works.  Since we’ve been here we’ve seen nothing worse that a fender bender (although you can’t even tell because all the vehicles are so old and dented to begin with).  Fender benders are nothing at all to them.  With the legal system as backed up and corrupt as it is here, it’s not worth a rickshaw driver to give up his day of driving to try to take some legal action, if there is even any to take.  His case wouldn’t get a resolved for a good decade so instead, he just backs up and scooters on through.  Anyways, I just wanted to share my epiphany with the readers back home so you can understand a little more of everyday life here.

 

So we were supposed to meet at 4?

[Chris Knight , 6:51 PM]

I just completed a cycle of chaos and am now down about 2 hours and 300 rupees.  I had to tell someone so I already gave the whole spiel to Chris but I think you will be entertained as well so here goes.  So we (Chris and I) are sitting in our room blogging just waiting for 4:30 to roll around so Siva could take us shopping.  I went down about 5 minutes early and ended up waiting for about 20 minutes for anyone to show.  Which no one did of course.  So I think about it for a while and ponder just staying at the hotel and playing a game or something dumb but I decide “hey, I’m in India… why would I ever want to do the boring thing?”  So I check my wallet for some change in rupees and head out the door upon confirmation that I don’t only have big bills.  I figured my group must have left without me and that they would only go to one of two places: City Mall, a local American style mall with a theater that is close to the hotel, or Spencer Plaza, a little farther away but supposed to have a lot more selection.  So I grab one of the rickshaw drivers by the hotel and tell him I will give him 100 rupees (about $2.50) to take me to City Mall.  This is where the whole drama starts.

The driver isn’t exactly sure where I want to go so he stops by a few other drivers to ask and we end up picking one up (which is weird since the driver’s seat is a one-seater).  He turns around and keeps saying “City Mall” and then starts babbling about something t-shirt and complimentary.  After expressing to him for about5 minutes that I don’t want a t-shirt I realize that the shirt is actually for him and he gets one if I go look around in this souvenir shop.  So I don’t really want to go but just to get him to shut up I agree.  We arrive and I go inside, still confused, and ask he guy inside about some complimentary shirt the guy in the rickshaw was asking about.  Well apparently he wasn’t supposed to tell me that he gets a shirt so he goes outside and yells at the side-seat driver which, in turn, makes him all pissed off at me.  We depart and return back to the hotel to drop off our now-annoyed extra passenger.  So so far we have wasted 10 minutes and haven’t gone a single foot.  The driver doesn’t give me another problem for the rest of the short ride to City Mall.  He drops me off and I pay him his 100 rupees as promised.  I decided when I got to the mall that not only am I out to find my classmates, but also to look for gifts for my parents.  Well, a gift for my dad, my mom I’m going to wait until I have a girl with me so they can tell me when I’m picking out something hideous.  I look around, searching every hall on all four floors and see no sign of my group, so I go into a store looking for my dad’s gift (which will remain anonymous since both he and my mother check the site daily).  With no sign of my group or the present I head outside to see if they are at Spencer Plaza.

Now I am far from what someone would call a hard ass but I was pretty proud of my stern frugality with the drivers today.  I stepped outside of the mall and approached the rickshaw drivers again.  As they swarmed I announced that I would pay 100 Rupees (again) to go to Spencer plaza.  They began saying it’s far away and asking 200 and numbers around that but I stayed strong.  “100 rupees or nothing” was my response to whatever their quotes were and I began walking away asking other drivers which quickly changed their minds.  So we’re scooting all over Chennai, I have no idea where we are, and I realize that it might not be the best idea to be riding through a city where I know only the people I traveled with.  I was comforted with the recollection that every place I’ve been, literally everyone stops to look up at me like I’m Godzilla coming to destroy their city (but not comforted enough to do it again haha!).  So we arrive at Spencer Plaza and I pay the man his 100 rs. 

I have to tell you, Spencer Plaza is enormous.  It doesn’t look like it, but once you’re inside, thousands of shoppers wander through a four story maze of just hundreds and hundreds of shops.  I knew it would be hard to find the group and was beginning to give up, to be honest, but I had already paid 200 rs to get here so I wasn’t going to just leave.  The main part of the mall is similar to an American mall, but it has dozens of side alleys throughout the mall with local shops including leather shops, phone stores, and who knows what else.  After wandering through the mall and getting harassed by every store owner standing outside his shop to come in (big dumb American will either destroy on my shop or buy a lot from it at a high price) I give up on both searches.  By this time I had been gone for a good 2 hours and had failed at finding anything I set off to search for so I decided it was time to go home.  I head outside (after asking directions to the main interest since the mall was a serious maze) and get ready for my final departure.

As I walk out the door I can again see all the rickshaw driver’s mouths watering as Godzilla, the big gullible American walks towards them.  And guess what I said to them…. You got it!  “100 rupees to take me to the Savera”.  Of course they gave their usual excuses of a long turn around or something dumb and I went with the same strategy of quoting the same price and then walking away to ask another driver.  It worked again and I hopped in a cart.  Now just to clarify, a more local person could probably have gotten less for the ride to the Savera, and could have definitely gotten lower for the first ride from the Savera to City Mall but it was a good even number and I didn’t really have enough change to give them anything less.  Plus I didn’t think it was a terrible price.  So I hop in the cart and he turns around and says “ok 100 rupees no problem, but ……. T-shirt….. complimentary…”.  I swear to you I almost screamed.  I would’ve been mad if it wasn’t so funny.  So I explain to him as best as I can that I don’t want to do that, another driver already had, and I just didn’t want to go through that again.  So he keeps pushing it and pushing it and says something like “it’s only 100 yard difference to the hotel” to which I very firmly respond “Please just take me back to the hotel”.  So the driver turns around and doesn’t talk to me again the rest of the trip.  When we arrive and I get out he is bold enough to ask for a bonus (although the fear in his voice upon doing so was very apparent).  I just handed him his 100 Rs and replied “thank you, here is the 100 like we agreed on” and walked off.  I’m not going to lie, it felt good.  I enjoyed holding my own in a city I’m not familiar with, with no one there to guide me. 

Of course when I get back into the hotel I find out that everyone had left at 4 and not 4:30 and that they went to all the mom and pop back alley shops and that I had absolutely no chance whatsoever of finding them.  But whatever!!!  I guarantee their shopping stories have nothing on my story of Godzilla v. the Rickshaws.

 

 

 

Friday, May 25, 2007

Of Sari’s, A Woman’s Strength, and Serenity

[Chris W. – Hotel Saverra, Chennai.]

I can only begin this blog entry by saying: Wow! Courtesy of Doug Johnson from the Institute of Financial Management and Research (“IFMR”), we not only learned about the history and success of Indian micro-finance programs, we actually met with a grandmother from a village outside the rural town of Tiruvallur who is fully supporting herself and her extended family thanks to a micro-finance loan. [At the outset, please note that you will not see any accompanying pictures or videos from this experience as I instituted a rule that we were not to appear exploitative to the villagers. In retrospect, it was the correct decision.]

 

During our ride to Tiruvallur, some seventy kilometers outside of Chennai, in the Indian province of Tamil Nadu, Doug walked us through the history of Indian micro-finance initiatives. Essentially, there are two forms of micro-finance initiatives: the first of which was developed by the pioneering work of Mohammed Yunis and the Grameen Bank. Mohammed Yunis has since been recognized with a Nobel Peace Prize for his work. His model centers around Self Help Group’s (“SHG’s”) of five women in size. Each of these women agrees to be jointly-liable for the loans of the her fellow SHG members. That is to say, if one woman is unable to pay, the other four members within her SHG are responsible for repaying her loan. The Grameen Bank, with the help of local NGO’s, actually chooses which of the five women will be awarded the first loan. This approach is somewhat different from other micro-finance programs supported by local Indian governments which utilize SHG’s of 20 members, and in which the group members, themselves, choose the first loan recipient.

These two models merge again with the opening up of deposit accounts for each of the SHG members. On top of the many training classes provided by local NGO’s, each SHG member is also responsible for their own accounting and ledger entries. At our first stop outside of Tiruvallur, we met with Mr. P. Stephen, theProgram Director at the Integrated Rural Community Development Society (“IRCDS”). IRCDS has started over eleven hundred SHG’s since its inception in 1997; only 23 of which have since ceased operations.

Mr. Stephen brought out actual savings or “pass” books for us to see as well as several payment ledgers that showed meticulous hand-written debit and credit entries. Although written in either Tamil or a smaller local dialect, I have never seen anything more poignant than hand-written ledger entries from largely illiterate women; especially knowing that each must come with its own unique story. Interestingly enough, almost all micro-finance loans go to women only. When I asked why this was so, Mr. Stephen laughed heartily and said that: “…men don’t pay back the loans[!]”

IRCDS provides each of its SHG members with the following mandatory training: basic bookkeeping skills; health and nutrition skills; various domestic violence prevention strategies; as well as the craft or farming techniques upon which they will eventually support themselves. In the village that we visited later that afternoon, the primary occupation was embroidery, or the hand creation of ornately detailed silk Sari’s. On a lighter note, we also learned that somewhere in Tamil Nadu there resides a terribly unappreciated Pickle making trainer. Since all of the women within the SHG’s supported by IRCDS must attend every training class that it offers, each of them has also been trained in the art of Pickle making. Through the NGO Interpreter who accompanied us on our visit, the women laughed at the futility of that particular exercise as none of them had even the slightest interest in pursuing the exciting craft of pickle making!

Mr. Stephen, the Program Director at IRCDS, also showed us the wide variety of statistics that his organization collects on each of the village programs that it supports. For example, Mr. Stephen can tell you what religion a recipient identifies with, what age they are, what their spouse’s name and age is, whether any women within their respective SHG are physically challenged. He even has color photographs of each of the SHG’s, with pins that show the locations of each of their respective villages on a large hand-made relief map on the wall in his office. [You can certainly learn more about his program by contacting him at: IRCDS, Post Box 7, No. 13, Dr. Abdul Kalam Street, M.D.M. Nagar, Tiruvallur – 602- 001, Tiruvallur Dist., TAMILNADU, INDIA, Tel: 044-27660084, or by e-mail at ircds@vsnl.com.]

As we sat in Mr. Stephen’s office, straining to hear his voice over the din of several large fans which vainly attempted to cool us in a building without air-conditioning, we were surprised to learn how commercially successful these micro-finance programs were for the many banks which supported them. Each of the “pass” book or savings account ledgers that we saw were marked with the logos of both private banks and large government banks such as the State Bank of India. With maximum default rates of only 5%, as well as interest rates of 2% per month, or 24% per year, it isn’t surprising that money can actually be made from such a worthwhile venture. Further, IRCDS requires that its SHG members first save at least half the value of any loan prior to being granted the funds. This policy continues for the life of an SHG. As a result, the banks granting these loans always have at least 50% of their outstanding portfolio backed by cash deposits from the SHG members, themselves. Talk about low-cost deposits and large capital reserves!

Mr. Stephen also described the accompanying rise of women’s political power through the SHG’s. Multiple villages within an area are governed under a body known as the regional Panchayat, or what would amount to a county government in the United States. There are three Panchayats in which IRCDS is active: Kadambathur; Thiruvallore; and Poondi. Members from the local villages in the Panchayat are eligible to vote for their representatives. And, as women have begun to create successful businesses within the villages, many of them have used their success to springboard into elected Panchayat positions. Throughout the villages, you will see the names of campaigning politicians next to a unique graphical symbol. While many of the villagers are illiterate, they can still effectively exercise their franchise by memorizing their favored candidate’s symbol. These symbols are always printed next to the text for each candidates name on all electoral ballots.

Recently, several less than savory male politicians at the Panchayat level have begun to try and cop-opt the support of local SHG leaders. To address this troubling development, IRCDS has changed its rules to ensure that the leader of each of its SHG’s, officially known as an “Animator”, only holds the position for one year. This way, the male politicians don’t have as much time to curry favor with one particular woman. The change in leadership also provides multiple women with the opportunity to gain self-confidence as they assume this highly visible role within their village.

IRCDS has also begun to create Men’s Support Groups (“MSG’s”) within several of the villages that they have established SHG’s. The reason being that many men are either unsupportive of their spouse’s membership within an SHG, or they are openly hostile to the establishment of same. And, with up to 90% of the women in IRCDS supported villages enrolled in SHG’s, this is not an obstacle to be taken lightly. IRCDS has even gone so far as to establish a “Best Man” award and to promote street theatre productions that tout the positive attributes of a man who supports his wife in this regard. Nevertheless, there are still no plans to loan money to men - even if they have won the Best Man award!

IRCDS is also separately involved in two other extremely important initiatives. The first of which is freeing those trapped in the perpetual cycle of Bonded Labor. This is a particular gruesome form of indentured servitude. In addition, IRCDS provides medication and relocation assistance to Mathammas, or girls who have been made to be the communal sexual property of a particular village. These girls are separated from their families, forbidden to marry, and then used at will by the local men of the village. Both of these topics certainly ought to be addressed by another Study Abroad participant from Georgia State University at a later date.

Around 2:00 pm, with the Tamil Nadu sun blazing above us, Mr. Stephen arranged for a member of his IRCDS staff to take us to one of the villages and meet the members of an SHG from the local Irulas tribe. We piled back into our hired car and followed this staff member on his motorcycle. As we drove along the dirt road, we couldn’t help but notice the conspicuous absence of trash and debris. Delhi and Chennai have shocked us all with their filthiness. But, here among the rural villages, you not only see healthy animals, you even see the occasional field of green grass. After about a twenty minute ride, we arrived at a small collection of tiny concrete structures and thatched roof dwellings. Almost immediately, people began shuffling out of these buildings and came up to us with curious faces. My roommate on the trip, Chris Knight, who is 6’4”, attracted most of the fascination.

Shortly after our arrival, we were warmly greeted by the local Animator. She was a thin elderly woman, wearing a beautiful light-green Sari, with beautiful dark skin, fine features and silvery hair. She quickly ushered us into a low-slung concrete structure. We would later learn that this structure was used to host the weekly SHG meeting. [I would try to spell her name, but I don’t think I would come close to getting it right. In addition, sometimes our IRCDS representative struggled to understand us.]

It was at this point in the day where the serenity in my blog title comes into play: After removing our shoes outside the concrete structure, we were ushered into a small open courtyard, covered with a dark colored tarp. The Animator and several of her fellow SHG members then placed several straw mats on the concrete floor for us to sit on. Then, slowly, some twelve children of varying ages gathered around us as we sat cross-legged on the mats. Through the IRCDS representative, each of us introduced ourselves and told the women where we were from. Then, even amidst the roiling heat, a sense of peace seemed to envelope our group as we began what would ordinarily be a difficult rhythm of translating our wide-ranging conversation with the thirteen members of this village’s SHG. Amazingly, only two women have left this SHG in the seven years since its inception. In both cases, the women left the village and therefore had to withdraw their savings from the local bank in the neighboring town of Tiruvallur.

Most of the women were intrigued as to how I managed to go to school and work at a job. I laughingly told them that my wife was still trying to understand that one, too. They immediately wanted to know how many children we had. I told them that we were still working on it; which provoked quite a laugh, albeit somewhat delayed by the translation. Then, they began pulling out all of the bank records, ledgers, meeting minutes, and the like, which were stored in an old plastic shopping bag, on a concrete shelf next to where we were sitting. Once again, even though I couldn’t read the descriptive language accompanying each of the entries, I could easily trace the debit and credit amounts. One woman’s ledger showed how she had been religiously saving 2 Rupees, or 5 cents U.S. $, per week, for almost the past year. The total amount saved, thus far: 92 Rupees, or U.S. $2.30.

After about half an hour, the Animator then led us to one of the woman’s homes. Once again, we removed our shoes, and then proceeded to a concrete workshop at the rear of the home where eight people were working on two different Saris. The two Saris were stretched over separate frames that were approximately eighteen inches in height and tied down to the frame at both ends. Each worker was hand stitching tiny beads into the most elaborate pattern, all the while moping sweat from their foreheads with small cloths that they kept in their laps. We learned that the grandmother whose home in which we were sitting was not only widowed, but she had also lost one of her sons and one of her daughters. She was even caring for the dead son’s two boys who were approximately six and eight years of age.

As we watched them work, we had another great laugh. Suffice it to say, little boys are troublemakers regardless of ethnicity, culture, language, affluence, or upbringing. And, this woman’s orphaned grandchildren were no exception. As they were putting on a show for us, the grandmother remarked through the interpreter that I was free to take them back to America with me. I laughed and responded that my wife would be more than happy if I showed up with two little boys. After the IRCDS representative translated the exchange, she looked at the two boys and told them that if they didn’t behave I was going to take them back to America. I didn’t even need the translation. I heard the grandmother’s chiding voice mention the word America along with my name, and then I watched as the little boys’ eyes bulged out in a look of surprise. Needless to say, they were quite calm and quiet for the rest of our visit.

Through the IRCDS representative, we asked the grandmother about the economics of her operation. She spent an average of 120 Rupees, or U.S. $3.00, on the materials for each Sari. She would then receive approximately 200 Rupees, or U.S. $5.00, from the local rural “Preference” merchant. As a result, she was left with an 80 Rupee, or U.S. $2.00, margin on each Sari to cover her largely family labor expenses as well as support herself. Depending on the intricacy of the design, her operation could produce a Sari every one to two days. Her workers said that they could handle up to a twelve hour day, but after that their eyes became too tired to work on the tiny details of the embroidery. With a team of up to four workers per Sari, that means the workers, themselves, couldn’t possibly earn anymore than 20 Rupees, or U.S. $0.50, per day. And, that figure assumes that the grandmother takes no profits herself, and that the workers can complete one Sari in a single twelve hour day. [We never could get a clear answer as to what she paid them; only that most of them were family, and that she paid them by the hour.]

Finally, the moment arrived for us to leave. As we put our shoes back on, and headed for our hired car that was parked under the one shade tree in the village, the experience really began to sink in. Even with the laughter of the boys who had by now overcome their earlier fear of being shipped off to America ringing in our ears, we began to get this sense of how life-changing this experience truly was. After all, we had met with members of an actual SHG, we had watched as one of their members created a commercially viable product, and we had held the very records of their amazing achievements in our very hands. It is one thing to read about the success of micro-finance programs in a textbook or newspaper. It is still another thing to hear lectures about SHG’s or to see pictures of Mohammed Yunis receive his Noble prize, but it is an entirely different matter to meet the very women whose lives have literally been transformed by micro-finance.

As our hired car left the village, we all fell silent. It was that incredible of an experience. Later on, as we merged onto the highway between Tiruvallur and Chennai, we all agreed that no one would believe how transforming an experience it was unless, they too, had been to the village and watched the Sari’s being made.

[For this experience, I simply cannot thank the following people enough: Doug Johnson, from the Institute of Financial Management and Research (“IFMR”) in Chennai; Mr. P. Stephen, the Program Director at the Integrated Rural Community Development Society (“IRCDS”) in Tiruvallur; as well as my M.B.A. classmate, Kevin Kelly, from Oracle, who originally put me in touch with Doug Johnson after I was unsuccessful in getting any assistance from the numerous NGO’s that I had contacted earlier this Spring. Any errors contained within this blog are solely my responsibility.]           

A Day In A World Away

[Laurie]

Ignorant and humbled. Those are the two words I would describe myself as after visiting the Integrated Rural Community Development Society (IRCDS) and a rural village nearby with Doug Johnson. Doug is a friend of Chris’s friend, and works for Institute for Financial Management and Research. I’ll let Chris fill you in on all the details of what Doug does, but suffice it to say, I was impressed by him.

He met us at our hotel this morning, and we all got into a white Ambassador with our barefoot driver to take us to the IRCDS in Tiruvallur, which is about 70 KM away from Chennai. On the way we talked a little about what we were doing here and how Doug, a Georgia boy as well, ended up in Chennai. He was incredibly interesting and well traveled for his age (which I’m presuming is younger than me). I am instantly envious of him. During the ride Chris tried taking some notes while Doug spoke, but the swerving of the car and the bumps on the road proved too much of a challenge. I took a stab at it as well, and now, while I’m reviewing my notes, realize it was an act of futility.

After stopping several time for directions, we ended up down a one lane dirt road. We promised Chris we wouldn’t take any pictures while we were there but along the way I didn’t think it was a problem. I took out our camera while we were on this dirt road, and I felt so stupid when I realized that we were there. I didn’t anticipate that this dirt road was *the* road. It was in the middle of what seemed like nowhere. Luckily, the camera had no battery anyway. (sorry again Chris!) When we arrived at the IRCDS we had the opportunity to meet with Mr. Stephen, the Program Manager.

The IRCDS helps work with SHG (Self Help Groups). Now, before Chris, I had never even heard of an SHG. Enter ignorance. An SHG is basically an organized group where they lock in as a group to secure a loan. They in turn create something to sell which in turn generates cash for them (to further buy materials) and repayment of the loan. The premise to me seems to be in line with the phrasing of ‘give a man a fish he eats for a day, teach a man to fish he eats for life.’ The Indian woman for so long was unable to make her own decisions. SHG’s help empower women, enable them to be a productive part of their village, and provides leadership skills. Mr. Stephen started showing us the books of one such SHG. The books, which are maintained by the individual SHG’s, contained a general ledger, an attendance ledger, a savings ledger, a cash book (double entry – which impressed me because here are these rural women in India doing accounting and I did terrible at it at GSU), bank pass books and a loan ledger. These are the types of books used for the SHG’s to keep track of the money entered into savings, etc., and they were all meticulous. I commented afterwards that my checkbook never looked as orderly as that. The “Animator” is the leader of the SHG, and she has two representatives: Representative 1 and Representative 2. Each SHG varies in size. To date, the IRCDS had 1,035 SHG’s (that contained 14,786 women). Some SHG’s have been around for as long as 10 years. 23 have ended. That means for 10 years a community of women has been pooling resources to improve their economic and political strength. Of the villages in the area, 90% are enrolled in some SHG.

Mr. Stephen then pulled out something that I found incredibly inventive – about 10 large posterboards arranged with pictures and charts of what his facility does, and how it has impacted the lives of these local villages. I likened it to an off-line power-point presentation. Clearly he was prepared for visitors. He showed how every month a panchayat meets, the 3 leaders plus 1 member. They review recent government schemes, any announcement and any sort of training. The IRCDS also functions as a form of outreach, teaching these women how to get good nutrition from the local vegetables; training for compost making, the cloth business and confidence building; and kids’ competitions that focused on running, speech and an essay. A psychologist was there to council on domestic issues as well. Truly they do some amazing work.

But our story doesn’t end there. Mr. Stephen asked us if we would like to go see one such village that does embroidery work. ABSOLUTELY. With the help of the psychologist (who spoke fairly good English), we got back in the car with our driver and headed through the town, down some windy roads. We passed cows that I think were even thinner than the cows in Delhi. After taking off our shoes we walked down a short hallway and entered a room that was half covered. Sitting us on a concrete slab they laid out two straw mats for us to sit on. In front of us was some sort of shrine, and bags of what we think was rice hanging on the wall. We were surrounded very quickly by 7 women and 6 or 7 children. This SHG has 13 members, and has been around for 7 years. Basically, each women contributes 22 rupees per week (20 for savings and 2 for administrative). If the SHG has 1,000 rupees in savings they can secure a 2,000 rupee loan. Right away they pulled out all of the books to show us. This struck me as something you would never see in the US – an organization showing you all their finances. The women were hospitable and friendly. They even gave us 7UP and Fanta to drink! Here we were, intruding on them, and they offered up such amazing hospitality. We talked more about the embroidery that they did. They sell their finished pieces to merchants, who in turn sell them to the consumer. I’m not sure I completely understood when they got paid, but I know that the materials cost about 120 and they sell them for 200. Keep in mind that is 200 rupee…which equates to about $5 USD. There are about 10 SHG’s in this village. Every house has a member. When we asked the psychologist if this group was wealthier than most (based on the books we saw), he said it was.

The ladies all sat with us on the floor and talked (through our translator). We learned that the “Animator,” who is the head, gets changed about once per year, serving a max of 2 years. Each member fills out their own books. Each member receives training on how to write in the books and the group meets once per week. Our Animator was a lovely older women, who talked and laughed and I laughed back not knowing exactly what it was that she said. She then brought us across the street to see some of the embroidery that they did. They create sari’s. We walked into another area with what appeared to be a covered patio. Inside there were 2 12-foot stretches of light fabric, and 3 people sitting behind each intricately beading into the fabric. They had a small 13” color TV in front of one of the looms, and “The Boss” the actor we see billboards for all over town, was on. She led us down to the end of the room…and then came back with 4 plastic chairs for us to sit on. Behind me, 4 little boys sat on the ledge and told me their names asking where I was from. They were all smiles. This SHG was a family business she said, and some of her children were doing the intricate beadwork. When I say intricate, I have never seen anything like this. Each bead, each little piece was embroidered onto this fabric. She said it takes about 1 day to complete, but to me that didn’t seem enough time to do all the detailed work that I saw. After a few minutes, the 4 little boys behind me and a little girl brought a fan out to cool us down. (How funny we must have looked to them, so not used to the intense heat and so clearly out of our element). The pattern that they worked off of was an old photocopied piece of paper, and it was amazing how they converted that into the giant piece of fabric in front of them. The people working sat quietly on the floor, beading away while we asked more questions. After a while it was time for us to go, and so we headed out. On our way out the door, Chris W. and I were still inside and the Animator pointed to a picture on the wall. We determined that it was her son who had died (2 of the little boys behind me were her grandchildren). She started to tear up as she was telling us, and I wanted to reach out and hug her but I didn’t know if it was appropriate, and I didn’t want to offend her after she had been so gracious towards us. I offered her a knowing look, bowing my head to her. I was truly touched. The little boys walked us out to our car and said ‘it was nice to meet you’ to which we replied ‘it was nice to meet you too!’ It really was. Words can’t describe the impact this visit had on me.

We thought we were headed back, but we had one last surprise. The psychologist wanted to take us to lunch. Now…Chris and I have had Delhi Belly for 2 days now, and the thought of food was painful. But, they were gracious hosts, and so we accepted the offer. We entered a local place where we had white rice with something on top (I’ll never know what it was). This was the first time I have ever eaten rice with my hands! Fun, but not so easy!

Both this organization and Doug’s are doing amazing things for these Indian women. They have provided the opportunity for these women to in fact be entrepreneurs, though not the type you think of right away when you think entrepreneur. This blog is incredibly long, and for that I apologize, but I had to detail out as best I could (if only so I could read this again later and remember how it was I felt today). I told Chris and Doug at lunch, there are really no words to describe what this experience was like for me. But I can say that yes… I was ignorant, and I am humbled.

 

Somewhere Outside Of Tiruvallur

Chris Wassenar, Doug Johnson from the Institute of Financial Managment Research, and Chris Knight

[Chris Knight, 6:41 pm]

Today was far and away one of the most incredible experiences of my life.  I really don’t know how I’m going to put it into words but I’ll do my best.

Today was our interview with the entrepreneur in India that we arranged a meeting with.  The specific field chosen was Micro-finance.  Since I’m sure Chris will go into incredible detail of what micro-finance is in India I will just give the quick overview.  Micro-finance is a Nobel Prize winning concept started here in India to support small business and entrepreneurs.  The concept is to lend an amount of money to a group of women in a poor village who will keep each other responsible for paying back the money.  This money is then used at the leisure of the women.  We were able to experience this concept in every degree today. 

We traveled 70 kilometers outside of Chennai (where we currently reside) to the town of Tiruvallur where the company providing the micro-financing was established.  I will skip over our meeting there because Chris is all excited about that and took about 30 pages of notes.  What I really wanted to talk about was the trip we made after the meeting.  One of the employees asked us to follow him on his motorcycle to a nearby village.  About 20 minutes of driving over the worst roads and through some of the saddest poverty imaginable, we arrived at a tiny village.  As we were led into one of the homes we were asked politely to remove our footwear before we entered.  A crowd of curious young boys began to gather around the corner of a building (obviously too scared to come out in the open but proving that no matter where you go, boys will be boys).  We sat on bamboo mats on the concrete floor, Indian style in a circle.  As we began talking a group of south Indian women began to enter and sit on the floor adjacent to us.  It was there that we learned that these women comprised the SHG (those who had received the micro-finance loans) in the village.  They brought us their accounting books and opened up all of their records to us.  When I looked at it, it was hard to just see ledgers and debits and credits.  Each scratch of each entry told a very emotional and mostly very happy story.  These women had taken money from a company and had actually bettered their lives because of it.  They were able to help support their family because of micro-financing.  The ladies of the village informed us that they had started an embroidery business and it was what followed that I will never forget.

We walked across the street into another home (after removing our shoes of course) and were back outside again in about 3 steps.  I was obviously the largest person to have ever been to their village because they all stared at me in awe as I ducked down a foot-and-a-half just to get through the doorway.  Chris and I later joked that since I was wearing my bright yellow polo shirt that I would one day fill the stories of the villagers as the guy as big and yellow as the sun!”   As we went back outside, to our left stood a long building that stood only about 7 feet high and was shaped like an open chicken coupe.  Inside, the family members of the lady’s house we were in were working diligently on a hand embroidered sari (the traditional Indian Woman’s outfit) that was so elaborate and so beautiful that the only way I could describe it would be to compare it to the painting “Starry Night” or a work of Monet.  The detail was just so exquisite I can’t even begin to describe it.  We were witnessing first-hand a woman who had turned the lives of her entire family around.  We sat in the workshop and talked for a minute (in between answering the rapid-fire questions from the young boys who had finally mustered the courage to talk to us) and she handed us some of her finished products to admire while we watched the work on a new one get knocked out.  As we were leaving, we stopped in the inside of her house because we heard her pause and cry out something.  When we turned around we saw her pointing to a picture hanging about her other door of two young Indian men.  As we stood there, she failed to hold back her tears as she told us that those two young men were her two sons who had died, and the little boys who had been following us around the village were their sons.  I will never in my life forget the image of that lady wiping the tears from her face today.  Never.  What an incredible person this woman is.  She was born with nothing into a world where the women are provided for by the men, has had to endure the pain of losing not just one, but two of her sons, and has still had the strength to care for her grandchildren, provide financially for her family, and become a leader in a place where leaders are always too far in between.

Today was an unimaginable experience for Chris, Laurie, and I, and on the ride home we sat in awe and tried to comprehend what we had just experienced.  In no way could I ever express how grateful I am for being here today and if I had paid the same amount for this trip to only come for today, it would’ve been worth every penny.

 

 

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Chennai Outcry

[Joi]

I must admit that I am not much of a blogger. I talked to my father today via Skype on my computer. By the way, Skype is a really awesome program that allows you to talk to anyone with a telephone number, almost anywhere in the world, for prices lower than GSU’s tuition. My dieting pockets are pleased with this new form of communication and I have our wonderfully beautiful and kind tech support wiz, Zoe to thank. But, I digress…..So, my dad asked for more blogging from me and as a faithful daughter, I shall comply.

I tend to enjoy posting others’ blogs and working with a lot of the visuals, behind the scenes type of work. But, what else am I to do when my father makes a special request and I am by myself in a mildewy hotel room with the Chennai Outcry (regional version of the Dehlhi Belly) and the rareness of down time?----I blog. I blog, indeed.

Before the plight of my traveler’s attack today, the class went to Braj Datalink to experience the first presentation from Indian entrepreneurs and it was nothing short of phenomenal. Dr. Nathan arranged for us to meet with these fine gentlemen and we sincerely appreciate his contributions to our trip experience. We met with the founders of Braj Datalink, Mr. Subramanian and Mr. Lakshminarayanan, also known as Mr. Mani and Mr. Lak respectively. They explained the history and current operations of their software programming company, and afterwards, the floor was opened for questions. I was really impressed with the amount and quality of questions from my classmates. In doing so, we were able to amount a mass of information about the ease of doing business in India from actual examples.

Primarily, India is not the easiest place for small businesses due to the frail employee loyalty. Most of Mr. Mani and Mr. Lak’s employees are attracted to large companies that offer more money and bragging rights amongst peers. Therefore, the number of employees that actually stay with small firms only average about 2 years of employment before heading to a larger company. A funny story Mr. Lak mentioned was of one employee who claimed to have the chicken pox and needed to be out for 2 weeks. Actually, the employee started to work for another firm to see if the other firm had more to offer, and if the offer was not as attractive, then the employee would return to Braj Datalink. Mr. Mani and Mr. Lak found out about the whole deal and contacted the HR department of the other company. Well, the HR of that company told the employee to go back to the Braj Datalink and formerly resign before resuming employment with the new company. Unhappy with interference from Mr. Lak and Mr. Mani, the disturbed employee returns back to the office during late hours and threatens Mr. Lak. In the end, everything settled, but this is just a clear example of the unreliability and unpredictability of India employees. I find it quite ridiculous that businessmen have to endure such measures because I am so accustomed to U.S. business practices. In India, there is not much protection or incentive for employees to stay, save for moral obligations used to bind them to their job duties. The most senior employee for Braj Datalink left 2 months ago and he had been with the company for 7 years. The instability of employee commitment is quite common in India, but in the U.S., people stay with firms for many, many years and are quite loyal. However, Indian professionals appear to focus more on the profession than the organization they work for. I learned about organization commitment in my management class this past semester, so I find it interesting to see this principle lacking in the small Indian businesses.

Additionally, difficulties arise for small Indian businesses in the area of paperwork and procedures. It is imperative for business leaders to have great connections and networking capabilities because the process is far from simple. There are many steps involved and a ton of paperwork to complete before starting a business and operating smoothly. So I suppose the idea of “its not what you know, but who you know” transcends national boundaries. Yet, I get the feeling it is more important to have connections in India than the U.S. because the U.S. regulations and widespread support of entrepreneurship make procedural processes much easier. Mr. Lak used the example of 1-day office registration in Atlanta, Georgia, compared to about two weeks in Chennai.

After thoroughly answering our questions and submitting sugar highs via delicious Indian biscuits (cookies), we perused the offices to view some of the employees in action. I got a couple of neat pictures that will probably be posted soon.

By this time, its around lunch, so we depart to go to a lovely Indian restaurant. So far, I have enjoyed the Indian cuisine. It has been pleasing to my tastebuds and equally filling. But…..something happened today, and it is unlike anything in my life! We are sitting in the restaurant and my stomach does a big no-no. It starts talking to me in a language quite foreign and uncomfortable to me, saying all sorts of evil things I don’t want to hear. Could this be true? Am I experiencing the same as my teammates Chris Wassenar and Laurie? Oh, say its not so…….but, it is.  I have the Chennai Outcry and that is exactly what my little tummy is doing, crying out to me in the middle of a nice restaurant in Chennai. Luckily, there are such kind people on this trip. I mean, I am sincerely blessed indeed because within minutes Lauren talked to Dr. Nathan and Jim to get me back to the hotel, Eric gave me an Aleve tablet, and Zoe offered to stay with me. Thank you so much to everyone! It speaks volumes to my heart and I really appreciate this sort of support when I am so far away from home and outside of my comfort zone.

So, here I am, hours later, jamming away on the keyboard and I am actually starting to like it. (Shh, don’t tell my Pops or he will expect a blog posting every hour on the hour).

I spent the remainder of my day in the hotel updating out blog page, working on a presentation for the Great Lakes Institute of Management visit, and eh em….becoming at one with nature. But I feel much better now that I have gotten some rest and some work done. I was also able to talk to my wonderful husband via Skype today (love you Habib!), so that added some much needed comfort and peace to my day.

It is getting close to 2 A.M. here, so I will conclude.

Til the next blue moon kind readers…….or maybe not ;)

 

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

The Micro-Finance Trip Is On!

[Chris W. - Hotel Savera, Chennai, India.]

Last night on the train from Agra to Chennai, I received an e-mail from our contact at the Institute of Financial Management and Research (“IFMR”). He will be meeting us at our hotel at noon on Friday, May 25th. From there, we will hire a car and drive to the rural town of Thiruvallur, some seventy kilometers (or ~40 miles) outside of Chennai. We are really excited about the opportunity to learn more about the whole concept of micro-finance first-hand from those NGO’s who support such programs, as well as the recipients, themselves. Many of the lecturers that we have met so far have concluded that micro-finance is key to the long-term economic success of India.

While there are a large variety of micro-finance programs; some of them government supported, some of them faith-based, still others that are entirely secular in nature. At its core, the concept of micro-finance operates upon the premise that by giving a person a fish, you only feed them for one day. Provide that same person with a fishing rod and reel, and they can then feed themselves and their families for the rest of their lives. Moreover, many micro-finance programs are “viral” in nature. That is to say that the loan recipients are often required to repay the loan to their community or village, and this money is then in turn loaned to another applicant who uses it to start their respective business. In other words, one initial loan might lead to dozens of additional loans as the pool of applicants continues to enlarge with each successive loan repayment.

In Thiruvallur, our IFMR contact will be visiting with several NGO’s that are working with Self-Help-Groups (“SHG’s”). These SHG’s are designed to assist micro-finance recipients with all facets of their businesses. Having now seen first-hand the enormous challenges facing a developing country such as India, it will be very meaningful to meet those on the front-line of such an endeavor. I am also hopeful that I can learn enough to persuade the global missions director at my Church in Atlanta, Peachtree Presbyterian, to regularly to support such programs in India. In any case, I suspect that this will be the highlight of my trip to India.

An Elephant, Tusar’s Tummy, and the Dreaded “Delhi” Belly!

For most of this trip, I’ve tried to write primarily about the assigned thesis as well as our many academic experiences. However, at some point, one needs to write about the “other stuff.” What other stuff is there you might ask? Easy: How about the twelfth episode of diarrhea that I just experienced within the last 18 hours, or maybe the fact that my poor trip-mate, Tusar, has been throwing up constantly for the past 36 hours. It is hard to imagine describing a person of Indian descent as having a green appearance, but Tusar really looks that bad. He has been quite a trooper! He goes to the bathroom, throws up, comes back out and joins the group. All the while, the mercury hits 42+ degrees celcius (over 100 degrees Fahrenheit). It is somewhat ironic that the only person who is really sick is the guy from Gujarat, India. Well, that is…until I ate the dinner served on the train from Agra to Delhi.

Who knows exactly what it was? But, it has left me with the dreaded “Delhi” belly. Imodium has, thus far, proved no match for this beast. I’m fascinated – in a clinical sense anyway – where all of this “material” comes from!?! I mean, it just keeps on coming! And, coming! This has proved especially problematic because the bathrooms at the Hotel Savera, here in Chennai, never seem to be stocked with anything more than one hundred squares of very, very thin ply toilet paper. The only person I feel more sorry for is my room-mate, Chris Knight. I’m sure whenever I say that I’ll be back in five minutes he just thinks….Yeah, sure! See you in twenty minutes Diarrhea Boy!

The evening began on such a high note with me riding an elephant. Tusar and I were awaiting the bus ride back to the train station in Agra when Tusar spotted an elephant. This, after we were told by our tour guide that while there were elephants in Agra, they were not trained to ferry any tourists around. They were only half right! Yes, this elephant was not trained for silly tourists such as myself, nor was he in any mood to cooperate with his Mahout (or trainer) in this “opportunity-based” entrepreneurial enterprise! If you watch the video that Tusar took, you will see me scramble up the back of the half-kneeling elephant, back-pack in tow, and then laugh as the elephant begins snorting in an enraged manner at the Mahout. The Mahout becomes enraged, too, and begins yelling at the elephant and jabbing him with a sharp, steel rod. All the while, I’m happy as a lark on top of the elephant. This adventure will be filed under the heading of “asking forgiveness, rather than permission” from one’s spouse, especially after she sees the video!     

 

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

A Day At The Taj

[Laurie – written on the bus after a day of sightseeing]

India has a rhythm unlike any place I’ve ever been…and for the moment I feel comfortable in it.  Everywhere I look there are people, and they seem oblivious to the situation – like there is nothing abnormal about a small two year old child standing naked and alone on the roof top of a 2-story Pepsi sign.  As we were driving on the bus I noticed two men walking down the crowded road, with one arm behind each of their backs, so engrossed in a conversation as if they were the only two people on the street, with bicycles swerving past and horns honking.  A few minutes later I see two older men sitting out front of a shop in lawn chairs just watching the crowds go by.  They didn’t look different than two older people we would find in the states sitting on a front porch talking somewhere.  I supposed that if I stayed here long enough, after a while I would stop seeing the masses and hearing the noise as well, and the pulsating of the horns and the volumes of the crowd would just become the heartbeat you feel, but don’t think about.

 

But I don’t live here, and this was made clear to me at our visit to the Taj Mahal.  Everywhere I walked people followed the other girls and I around.  They would stand close to us and try and take pictures of us.  Some of them even squeezed in on my Christmas card picture.  What was fascinating was that it wasn’t just one type of person, a boy, or a child.  It was all people…including older women.  The funny thing is it didn’t bother me like I think it bothered the professors with us.  I didn’t feel threatened or scared by the people coming up to me.  It was almost as fascinating to me as it was to them.  Why would anyone want to come up and take a picture of me?  It was more surreal than anything else. And there were so many people.  (Is this what Angelina Jolie feels like when she travels?)  After a while though, all I felt was the heat radiating off of my black flip flops.  When we toured the Taj Mahal it was 45 degrees Celsius.  That’s 111 degrees Fahrenheit for those stateside.  The water that we carried turned into hot water while we walked around, which did nothing to quench our thirst in the hot stale air.  At the end of the day though, I feel like I ‘get’ this rhythm in India.  For now, I understand it without judgment.

 

[Chris W. , 5:48 am]

One of the primary tasks that Professor Beach assigned us on this trip was to support or challenge the following thesis: The Indian Government has hampered entrepreneurial achievement. To this, my group has tried to respond by drawing a further distinction between local or State governments and the national or Federal Indian Parliament. Yesterday, we started to get some answers from those [ostensibly] on the front lines of Entrepreneurial achievement in India.

 Our first stop was the National Institute for Entrepreneurship and Small Business (“NIESBUD”) in Noida, a suburb of Delhi. The hospitality of the director and his largely Ph.D. staff was overwhelming. That is one thing that has resonated so powerfully with everyone in my group; amidst so many challenges, the warmth and friendliness with which everyone has greeted us. When I say challenges, I’m largely referring to the infrastructure issues that my teammate, Chris Knight, will expand on upon later. Suffice it to say, we made three site visits and had dinner at the Radisson, and in each location the power went out; sometimes three times or more in a single location.

Wherever possible, I have tried to ask each of our lecturers for their respective views on the role of the Indian government in promoting entrepreneurship. The first response that I received was from the Director of NIESBUD, himself. He pointed to the Indian Parliament’s passage of the Micro-Small-Medium-Enterprises-Act (“MSME”) in October of 2006. The MSME Act provides for a combination of tax breaks and reduced government paperwork based upon varying classifications of capital size and industry or service classifications.  The tax breaks, themselves, can provide enormous opportunities for those who start businesses. The economic classifications range from the “Micro” products that cost as little as 5 Rupees or $U.S. 0.12, and go as high as 5,000 Rupees or $U.S. 120.00. The “Small” businesses make up the next major classification, and the “Medium” after that.

At the Global Institute of Management, our final site visit of the day, Dr. Raju Voleti, delineated the tax breaks in more detail. The tax breaks range from 30-35% of a firm’s profits and they last from five to ten years. [I wasn’t entirely clear as to whether a distinction is made upon solvency, much less how such would be determined or confirmed through any governmental audit controls.]  Dr. Voleti also broke out some additional sub-categories within the act based upon various artistic pursuits. For example, the famous silk Sari’s often require governmental support based upon minimum price levels for certain qualities of material.

I asked Dr. Voleti if the Indian parliament could either pass or enforce any legislation to further promote entrepreneurship in India. While he didn’t answer the question directly, he pointed to national legislation such as the aforementioned MSME Act as well as numerous provincial and local initiatives such as the Special Economic Zones, rural land grants, interest-free loans, and the like. I got the sense from his demeanor that he was generally satisfied with the current state of governmental support for entrepreneurship. Part of that may be due to the historical context into which most Indian businesspersons view their government ‘s involvement in this regard. Suffice it to say, the Indian governments, both local and national, have probably been the single greatest barriers to business achievement in India. My teammate, Joi Faison, will have much more to say about this in her presentation on the License Raj economy.

 All in all, I continue to be amazed at the success of Indian businesses, regardless of their respective size. I say this not only because of the numerous infrastructure issues, but also because everything seems to be stacked against anyone who tries to start a business. Assuming you can work-around the infrastructure issues and the well-known political corruption, you still need a potential market of sufficient size and [relative] affluence into which you can sell your products and services. As of Tuesday, we haven’t yet been exposed to what would appear, (at least from our Western eyes anyway), a large middle class into which one could market a variety of consumer products and services. I’m sure that this is merely due to the respective transportation routes that we took to our various site visits, and not any true reflection of the lack of such a middle class market.                                                                                                                              

 

[Chris W. – Trident Hilton, Agra, 3:31 pm, lobby bar]

The two-hour train ride to Agra ended up being extremely fortuitous to my teammates and I. At this point in our trip, we had not heard back from our micro-finance contact in Chennai. Out of nothing more than sheer dumb luck, we happened to land an interview with a real live Indian entrepreneur. Seated next to us on the train was Mr. Gauran Shinghal, the founder of a lead-acid battery business in Delhi. [You can watch video clips from our interview at the video link on the main page of our trip’s website.]  Mr. Shinghal graduated from both the Indian Institute of Technology (“IIT”) in 1980 with a degree in mechanical engineering as well as a business degree from the Indian Institute of Management. Essentially, Mr. Shinghal graduated from two of the most prestigious universities in all of India. The joke in India is that if you don’t get into IIT, you still have Harvard as a back-up.

After graduation, Mr. Shinghal began working as a technical sales representative for Bharat Forge, a manufacturer of steel footings in Pune, India. Shortly thereafter, he left Bharat Forge to assist a family firm that required the assistance of his formal business education. This family firm manufactured and distributed several consumer products such as Pan Masala, a digestive aid, as well as chewing tobacco. In the mid-80’s, Mr. Shinghal left the family firm to start an import trading firm with a partner. They soon opened their first manufacturing in 1990. Eventually, he and his partner focused on the lead acid battery market. His products provide power for large industrial applications.

After learning about his background, Chris Knight and I decided to get right to our Professor’s thesis: The Indian Government has hampered the growth of entrepreneurial achievement. It was also at this point in the conversation that things began to get really illuminating. He walked us through the pre-liberalization reality of doing business in India, and it didn’t sound all that pretty. As an example, he described the almost paralyzing effects of the myriad of regulations imbedded within the official Indian Import-Export Policy on externally focused enterprises. I then turned the topic of conversation to the present situation.

I asked him what he thought were the principal challenges faced by present-day entrepreneurs with respect to the [Federal] Indian Parliament. He drew a clear distinction between two sets of entrepreneurs in India: those who earn less than 1.5 million Rupees or U.S. $35,000 per year; and those earning greater than that. It is at the 1.5 million Rupee annual limit that business owners begin paying incomes taxes that start at the 35% marginal rate. These businesses also face increased governmental oversight and bureaucratic paper-work. As a result, he feels many Indian businesspersons are perfectly content at remaining within the 35% level to avoid the additional hassles. At this annual salary, he feels most people in India can live quite comfortably and, most importantly, afford a decent education for their children.

He also described the challenges of addressing India’s numerous infrastructure issues within the context of an increasingly fractured [Federal] multi-party Parliament. Due to the need to build coalition relationships in order to form majority governments, it is often difficult to achieve the consensus necessary to push through certain critical, and far-reaching governmental public works projects. He compared this to China where the totalitarian regime seems to be much more successful at marshalling mammoth, and widespread, public works projects. This presents an interesting dichotomy within the world’s two largest emerging economies: on the one hand you have India, a liberal democratic society that struggles with the frustrating pace of infrastructural development; on the other hand you have China, which, while effective at pushing through massive public works projects, does so at the expense of democracy and human rights. If given the choice of the two countries in which to live, frankly, I’d pick India. Your power might go out constantly, but at least you can vote! 

Interestingly enough, he was not shy about directing some criticism towards certain members of the entrepreneurial class, itself. He described some personal frustration with the attitude that some entrepreneurs had that the government needed to do more, and that they, themselves, didn’t need to give something back to society. I would liken this to the contrast between the successful “rugged individualist” in the United States who gives back philanthropically to society, as opposed to the “big government liberal” who expects the government to do it all. If you took away the fact that I was sitting on an Agra-bound train, talking to an Indian businessman, this same conversation could just as easily have taken place in a gate-area at Hartsfield airport, in Atlanta.

Finally, and perhaps most surprisingly of all, when asked whether he would want his own children to become entrepreneurs: he emphatically said “No!” He would rather that they become professionals such as teachers, accountants, doctors, or lawyers. When asked why he would feel that way: he was quick to say that he didn’t want them to experience the stress and sleepless nights that come with trying to start or run a business. He also wants them to follow their interests rather than choose to run a business simply as a means to support a family. To Mr. Shinghal, it was his family, above all else, and not his business, that really mattered the most to him!

[9:26 PM  Chris Knight]

Each time I get to sit down to post an entry, it’s hard for me to decide what to talk about.  It seems that we do so much every day that it’s hard to keep up with what we’ve done, what I’ve written about, and what readers would be most interested in hearing about.  Since my last blog I’ve seen a family of monkeys, three cities, and one of the great wonders of the world; been on a train (for the first time ever) and a plane; and have dealt with everyone’s constant stomach problems (mine included) among many other things.  Today I’m going to leave those stories until another day and write more of a response to Chris’ last entry about our train ride to Agra which turned out to be extremely fortuitous for those sitting with us.

As Chris already explained, we happened to sit down next to Gaurav Shinghal, an Indian man who has been an entrepreneur for the past 16 years.  Mr. Shinghal graduated from two of the best universities in the world and has since started 3 firms and has become very successful.  The term “successful” actually ended up being one of the larger topics we hit on in our discussion.  The question he would ask us in a response to many of our questions was “what is success and how do you measure it?”  It’s a good question and an extremely important one in terms of this course.  We have flown half way around the world to meet supposedly successful entrepreneurs and we might have done it without knowing exactly what we were looking for.  Mr. Shinghal made the point that success can be measured not only economically, but socially, politically, and based upon the overall quality of life the individual’s business venture(s) has given him/her.  A man could open up a hut in his village, make just enough to feed his family but would go home every day beaming with pride because he is the only husband/father on his street that can do that.  In his mind and in the minds of his neighbors, this man is successful, but in the mind of most capitalists, this man is barely surviving and would not necessarily be classified as successful in his business.  The point of this analogy was to show the difficulty of the task set before us, as Mr. Shinghal helped us realize.  How can we measure success if we cannot define it?

Our conversation throughout the train ride was most pleasant.  We discussed many issues in India as well as America and as I have continued to do in our interviews so far, I tried to direct the conversation towards India’s infrastructure since it has been my concentration so far.  I popped my increasingly infamous question “If you, as an entrepreneur, could fix one and only one part of the infrastructure in India to better entrepreneurship the most, what would it be?”  In my research about India’s infrastructure, I came to believe that it was the roadways that would make all the difference to Indian business.  His answer surprised me.  Without hesitation he said it would be the water system.  Water?  I know it’s kind of essential for life but does it really affect business in India THAT much?  He then went on to explain the importance of the Indian agricultural market to the Indian economy and how little irrigated land India actually had.   It seemed like agriculture, surprisingly, was still the primary fuel for India’s economy, not the outsourcing services that have become so popular among global businesses recently.

Needless to say, we were more than grateful for the time Mr. Shinghal had given us and the information he had shared.  It was a good feeling to meet a man who has been very successful (there goes that word again) in his country while still being a good person.  I think this trait is what has made Mr. Shinghal successful by any definition of the word.