Question: How do you ensure that men will buy lots of items at a clothing store (womens, mens, kids)?
Answer: Load the entry way with attractive Indian women in sarees who immediately latch on and become your personal shopping guide. Further train these guides to smile pretty, bat their eyelashes, and be generally flirtatious and relentless, especially if you express even the slightest interest in an item. :)
We visited Naina Sarees ("Your dream saree destination") on the (excruciatingly long) drive back to the apartment tonight. It was a very nice store, but my gosh did they have the formula down just right, at least in terms of us clueless Americans (and one Scot). I got out relatively unscathed, but I feel for my companions. It was darned near impossible to say no to these relentless beauties.
One thing that I've noticed in our many hours stuck in traffic is the strange array of vehicles. Take this van at left, like so many other vans and the autorickshaws. The tires are very small -- well under 12" in size. Oftentimes they are wider than normal tires, but eerily small. You have quite a range, though, from these miniature trucks up to full-size trucks that are as big as semis without having the payload on a separate trailer (tankers, flatbeds, etc.). And then there are all the buses, crammed full of people.
This wide variety, combined with the seemingly random "see a spot, take the spot" driving approach, can lead to all sorts of interesting situations. I'll post some videos from my camera when I get back States-side. Suffice to say, I would never think of driving around there. As I believe I've mentioned before, there's clearly precedence given to larger vehicles. However, a truly skillful driver, such as ours, can really make good progress weaving aggressively in and out of traffic while generously double-tapping the horn.
One of the worst parts of traffic is the pollution. Today we had an absolutely horrendous commute back to the apartment, spending 2 hours going only a couple miles. In fact, we stopped off at Naina partly as a break from traffic (for us and the driver). You know traffic is bad when your calm, cool, collected, expert driver starts coming unhinged. Back on pollution, though, these are the old, old, old school diesels that stink offensively. It's really quite awful, and really about the only real thing that might make me consider not moving here, if such an opportunity were presented. But, anyway...
Sitting in traffic gives one lots of time to look about (whenever you're not blocked by smelly buses and trucks, that is). I tried to catch this quick shot this morning of a building for an Indian consulting company. Make no mistake, this country is in it to be an economic powerhouse. They are highly motivated. And, subsequently, there are potentially tons of opportunities here for equally motivated internationals who can help round out teams. Nonetheless, I found this sign, on a major build, to be a sign of the times.
One last bit of commentary on vehicles... pretty much every vehicle has a backup signal (in the U.S., we're used to this with commercial vehicles only -- that *beep, beep, beep* sound). What's amusing about this is that you're able to get custom backing-up tones. We've heard a variety of tunes, from normal beeps to modern beeps to traditional music to classical music and beyond. All in a beep format (like midi, really), of course. No orchestration or vocals -- would be too confusing. :)
So, anyway. Tomorrow's our last day. We're tired, but all of us are excited about the prospects, and are eager to build on the progress made. India is primed to become a true leader in innovation and engineering. It makes sense that we be aligned properly to leverage off of that. I look forward to seeing what new opportunities arise from here as the world continues to change, and as business truly goes global.
