Girish Gangadharan

As promised in my previous post, i’m going to talk about what i did the same day i landed here, in Chennai, in an attempt to change the system a little bit.

Everybody knows that India is not the most polite country among civilized nations. We did not earn that honor by choice but that just happened. India is the largest democracy in this world and when you have just over a billion people trying to eke out a living in congested cities, people just don’t have time to stop and say Hi or greet you with a smile when you walk into their stores.

Anyways, here’s my story.

Location: State Bank of India, HVF – Avadi, Chennai.

Time: May 23rd 2007 – 9:30 AM.

My dad and I walk into this bank and we see 2 lines at these 2 counters. My dad asks me to stand in one line and leaves to go to the ATM. I’m standing there and the line is moving very slow. My patience is running out. And that’s when i notice that the other line is barely moving at all. Turns out that there is no one at that counter. And people have been standing there for a while now.

One of them finally decides to open his mouth and ask the person serving the people in my line, “Excuse me…is anybody gonna attend the people standing in line at this counter?”

The man doesn’t even look at this guy and answers “Nope.”

Immediately people start grumbling and mumbling and start to move towards the end of my line. The guy who asked the question originally was obviously mad at reply he received. He said “You could have just told us that before. We’ve been standing here for so long.”

The banker replies “Well…you never asked before…did you?”.

Can you believe it? The banker knew this the whole time that nobody was going to attend that counter and he intentionally did not tell those people for whatever reason.

And even worse, look at this rude reply! This is how most institutions/organizations deal with their customers. People in India are used to this kind of attitude from not only government employees but also from private firms. Nobody cares about losing the customers. Why would they? They know that if they lose one, they have only lost ONE BILLION MINUS ONE. Do the math!

I was stunned as i witnessed this whole thing. The reality is that i have been spoiled big time by the United States of America. People are nice, courteous and kind there. Customers are treated with utmost respect. Forget customers, people in general care about each other and treat one another just like how they would like to be treated.

So anyways, my dad comes back and i tell him what happened. He says “well…stop comparing India and America. You have lived in both these countries. You know the difference. Things will never change here and one man cannot make any difference. Many have tried and failed. Only one man was successful. He was called Gandhi and somebody shot him dead, after all that he did for this country. So, just forget it. We need to get our work done and get out of here soon.”

He asked me to go take a seat and stood in the line for me. I was sitting there and trying to think when will India change. If people like us, keep letting these losers trample us, they are going to continue doing that. Nobody wants to deal with the mess. Nobody wants to make a difference. They just want to take care of their stuff and move on with their lives. No wonder India is still a “developing” country.

I couldn’t just sit there and take it like that. I decided to do something about it. I stood up and started walking towards the General Manager’s office. People were waiting to see him. I was standing in the line there when the helper (peon) asked me to take a seat. I told him i didn’t have time for that and i wanted to lodge a complaint.

He asked me what was wrong and i told him what happened there. He smiled and said it happened every single day. People have complained many times about that banker and nothing actually happens. He told me 12 people were supposed to be at work today and only 2 were there!

Ha! Welcome to India.

He asked me to just walk in to the GM’s office and talk to him.

I walked in and apologized to the people waiting there and told the GM i needed to lodge a complaint about an employee there.

Initially, he looked at me as if i had 3 heads. I knew i had to say something to make him take me seriously.

I didn’t have a lot of time to think.

Here’s our conversation after that.

“Hi. My name is Girish. I just arrived today from the United States. I’m here on a 4 week project for a bank called Washington Mutual. Have you heard of them before?”

That did it. I got his attention the way i wanted.

“Yes Sir. Please have your seat Sir.”

“No, thanks. WaMu is planning to have a tie-up with your bank SBI to help capture the NRI (Non Residential Indian) market in the United States. I was assigned to do my research about your bank and file my findings as a report. Today i witnessed something that doesn’t exactly put your bank in good light. I want to know if this is the kind of respect your customers get. WaMu is very serious about customer satisfaction and i’m sure they’d like to know what happened here today.”

“What happened Sir?”

I explained.

He immediately called that banker and went ballistic. He started explaining the “importance” of customer happiness and how the customer is “always right” and blah blah blah.

I could actually hear the banker’s response. He obviously was denying everything as expected.

But he got what he deserved. And the manager apologized to me for what happened and “promised” me it will never happen again. (Yeah…right!). He requested that i mention how the GM handled the situation in my “report”. ( Sure!) He even offered to take care of my business there today. I politely refused and said i’d rather stand in line like others and get my stuff done.

I thanked him and walked out of his office to see my dad waiting there for me.

My dad asked me “Did you complain to the manager?”

“But Dad..”

“Yes or no?”

“(Sigh!) Yes.”

“I KNEW it. I was standing in the line when he got that call from the manager. He was stammering and was obviously shaken. People were laughing and the guy behind me said that somebody must have complained. I knew it was you. I knew it.”

“Dad. I had to. I’m sorry if i embarrassed you.”

He smiled and said “Not at all.”

Yeah…yeah…i had to lie. I admit it. It was not the right thing to do. But a simple harmless lie that didn’t hurt any innocent person, and actually helped a few people, is not a bad thing.

On a side note, turns out that the banker worked faster after he got that call.

Jai Hind!

It’s been 3 since years since i took a decent vacation. The last time i took one, it was a trip to India. Back then I was still a student just about to graduate that semester. It was a calculated move since i knew as soon i as came back to the US, i would look for a first full-time job and to ask for a 4 weeks vacation within a year of joining any company would not look all that impressive to the employers. So it was then or at least 2 years from then.

I added the ticket expense to the student loans account and booked my tickets. Boy! Did i have fun or did i have fun! I loved it. It was so cool. Everywhere i went, i was treated with so much love and respect. After all, not many kids in the family gets to go to the US and complete a Masters degree in Engineering.

So this time when my sister said she was moving to India for good, and the fact that my father is retiring after serving the Central Government defense ministry for about 38 years, i thought “Well…may be this would be the best time to take a vacation. I can help her move, carry some stuff for her to India (actually the plane did but i packed as little as possible so that i can pack an extra luggage for her and show it as mine)…and be there when my father’s loved ones are celebrating his achievement”.

And so i decided to take a 4 week vacation this summer. Bad time to plan a trip to India but …oh well! The journey was not all that fun as expected – nobody likes to fly for 19 hours with a break of couple of hours in between. The break was at Frankurt, Germany.

Man…what a shitty airport! They made people sit in a big hall and then after about an hour. They asked all of us to leave so that they can “board” us …sounds fine…right? Yeah..the only difference is that they were not actually “boarding”. They just wanted to check everybody’s ticket and then let them back in to the same freaking hall.

Yeah…more than 200 passengers including nursing mothers and older people, were standing in front of this little gate where Lufthansa had 2 people “checking” people’s tickets and letting them in. There were no lines ..nothing. Just a huge crowd comprised of mostly brown people – about 98%. Looked like a refugee camp to me where people were waiting for food packets.

And after about an hour of crawling through an ocean of people and check-in baggages, everyone finally got back into the hall and then within about 15 minutes, they said “yeah…you can all board now…”. Again, people rushed to the gate. This time we didn’t have anyone standing at the gate and actually boarding each one in. So it was a race-to-your-seat game. What a freaking mess!

After 8 hours and 30 minutes of seemingly never-ending flight, we finally landed in Chennai at about midnight. And after about an hour of immigration paper work, we got out of the airport and walked into the spread out loving arms of my dad. And that’s when i realized, DAMN….it is HOT! I was sweating like crazy! And my cousin mentioned “i know dude…the humidity is gonna kill you. You realize it is 2 AM in the morning…right? Wait until you get to see the sunlight tomorrow man”. Sigh!

Boy was he right? It is sooooo hoooootttttt here! I feel like i have already lost 10 lbs…and got dehydrated the first day itself.

Another interesting thing happened today. I got a chance to attempt to change the system a little bit. Something that has been on every Indian’s mind…something that every one has dealt with at least once in their lifetime in India….i took it on…

Stay tuned for the next post!