Incredible India – part 2

Click here for part 1.

Who needs to go to Disneyland when, for a few rupees, you can get a daytime cab ride through the middle of Kolkata?

I arrived back at Howrah station in Kolkata after my second overnight train journey in two nights. After a decent sleep I was primed and ready for another day in India, not quite knowing what it had in store for me or where I’d end up.

Outside the station we randomly selected a taxi driver who, following something my traveling companion Shyam said, seemed determined to make it his life’s work to get us to the airport in time. Not necessarily in one piece, but he’d sure as hell get us there.

Getting away from the train station and onto the Rabindra Setu Bridge was a mission in itself. Crossing from Howrah in the west to the city of Kolkata on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River, this is said to be the busiest cantilever bridge in the world. It seemed that, on this day, and with us horribly late for our flight, a large chunk of the population of West Bengal had come out for a morning drive.

Getting there is half the fun

Masses of yellow ambassador taxis, buses and trucks jammed the on-ramps to the bridge. Horns beeped constantly, while engines revved and people screamed. Disorganised chaos it was, but great fun all the same.

The dash across Kolkata was exhilarating. The taxi weaved this way and that, accelerating, pausing and narrowly dodging all manner of moving impediments as it sliced through the streets. We stopped briefly for petrol. A hose with a nozzle wedged on the end of it appeared out of a building and was thrust into the side of the vehicle. A few seconds later we were off again, lurching back into the seething vehicular cauldron.

Kolkata was little more than a moving traffic jam. The road markings weren’t worth the paint they were painted with. Tuk-tuks weaved in and out of myriad other forms of transportation on roads that could barely, just barely, be described as roads. I sat there, clinging to my bag with a big stupid grin on my face, shaking my head and wondering how I’d ended up in this predicament. What else could I do apart from enjoy the ride?

And then try to figure out what on earth could follow that.

Touching down in Hyderabad was a pretty good start. The final leg of my customer-visiting itinerary took me south to the city I felt most at home in during my brief stay on the subcontinent. The hustle and bustle was less, the attitude more relaxed and the atmosphere about as profoundly composed as it can be in a city of more than six million people.

We paid a late afternoon visit to the headquarters of a company called Robo Silicon. This company has done a fantastic job in branding and marketing manufactured sand in the south of India. We then went for an even drive around Hyderabad, shopping for pearls, meeting a cadre of work colleagues at the ‘pub’ and finally stopping at the hotel for the biggest curry I had all week.

Leaving on a jet plane

The next day I was on the move again. I arrived in Delhi in the early afternoon to spend a few hours with Dinesh, another work colleague. We had dinner and discussed the chances of both the Indian and New Zealand teams at the 2007 cricket world cup, which, at the time of my visit, was about to begin. We were both a little nervous about our chances but, as things turned out, I had less to worry about than my colleague.

I left on an early flight from Delhi the next morning and arrived home via Singapore and Sydney. I’d had one heck of a frantic week, spending each night in a different bed in a different corner of India. It was great to be home. And, unlike when I arrived in India, my bag showed up with me. Which was an added bonus.

Sweet home Matamata

I would not have lasted more than a day without my Indian traveling companion. As little more than a wide-eyed tourist I have no doubt this country would have swallowed me up, spat me out and left me on the roadside if I’d tried to navigate it by myself. It’s a long, long way from small town New Zealand to teeming, steaming cities like Mumbai, Kolkata and Delhi, all among the largest metropolitan areas on the planet and with population figures that dwarf the whole of New Zealand.

Despite the obvious poverty there is so much happening in India, not only in construction but also in so many other areas, including software, telecommunications and general infrastructure development. Some of the larger Indian companies are even aggressively starting to look off shore to grow. World beware!

Can’t keep away

I’ve been back to India twice since my initial visit. Both times were for office-based business meetings in Delhi. The first of these visits, in 2009, was a stark reminder of how quickly things are growing in India. The DLF City area of Gurgaon, where the company I worked for is based, was little more than open fields in in 2007. Two years later it was loaded with glass-walled skyscrapers bearing the logos of some of the world’s largest companies.

The hotels on offer in Delhi, and the other places I stayed at during my first trip, are truly world class. The Leela Kempinski and Radisson in the Gurgaon area are as good as anything you’ll stay at anywhere in the world.

You have to go through a pretty thorough security check to enter each hotel, which is a shock the first time but you quickly get used to it. Delhi is stocked with these types of hotels and, thanks to my work colleagues, I had dinner at a number of them during my visits. One thing about India is the food is very good.

One regret is that I didn’t have much time for tourist-related stuff during my visits to India. On my most recent trip, in 2010, however, I did have the chance to check out Delhi’s massive Red Fort complex. What a massive complex that is!

The imposing entry is awesome. You can only imagine what the potential conquerors back in the day thought when they first clapped eyes on it. “Bugger this,” would be my guess.

Incredible India – part 1

Back in 2007 I made my first trip to India. It was a business trip to visit customers of the company I was working for at the time. That was interesting enough, but what was utterly fascinating was the real-time, eye-popping life experience I gained at the same time.

A little bit about India

India is one the world’s largest and fastest growing economies, boasting GDP growth rates of over 9% in 2007, when I made my first visit, and nearly 7% in 2011. The country has made speedy progress over the last decade or so and the brakes don’t look like coming on any time soon.

It is well known that the software, technology and communications industries are important in India. Construction and infrastructure development projects are also helping drive the growth and modernisation of the nation. Since the turn of the millennium, large Government-backed programmes have been launched to strengthen the country’s road and railway networks, along with improving ports, airports and India’s power generation capability. Rising personal wealth, particularly in the upper and middle classes, is helping fuel the residential and commercial building market.

In many areas of the business world India is a confident and cheerfully aggressive force of nature. The country is home to some truly massive companies that seem ready for regional and possibly global expansion.

It was into this cauldron of hyper-activity that I touched down for my first whirlwind week of sub-continental exploration. During that brief stay in 2007 I visited the four corners of India and met a remarkable cross section of people.

Business first

My first jaunt took in visits to large construction and engineering companies in Mumbai and Pune, a refractory plant in Belpahar, a sand manufacturer in Hyderabad, and the Howrah train station in Kolkata.

In Mumbai, my first port of call, I stopped by the headquarters of Hindustan Construction Company (HCC), which has been building large and complex structures for more than 80 years and is now one of the largest private sector construction companies in India.

HCC’s headquarters is a modern five-story office block in a compound that provides an oasis of calm in the otherwise fierce whirlwind of activity that is Mumbai. From there the company oversees a project portfolio consisting of high value ventures into areas such as transportation, power, marine projects, oil and gas pipeline constructions, irrigation and water supply, utilities and urban infrastructure.

It was just starting to dawn on me how large and all-encompassing some of these Indian companies are. I don’t really know what I was expecting, but for some reason it wasn’t that.

The thing that had me really nervous, though, was turning up in Mumbai minus my bag. Basically I only had the clothes I was wearing, as I hadn’t packed any emergencies in my carry-on luggage. You only make that mistake once in your life, but that wasn’t a reassuring thought at the time, given the journey I had ahead of me. Having never been to India before, and not really knowing what was on the cards, I was positively crapping myself. And, given the stories I’d been told in the lead-up, surprisingly it wasn’t thanks to the food.

Thankfully things worked out well. My Indian traveling companion got hold of the airline, on numerous occasions, and worked it out so that my bag would meet up with our Pune to Mumbai to Kolkata flight a couple of days later. In the meantime, I spent some of the rupees I’d been given by the airline on a new shirt, undies and socks at a mall any western city would have been proud of. We even had time to have a wee at Sachin Tendulkar’s restaurant.

Welcome to Pune

Pune, India’s seventh largest city, and known for its software and IT industry, is an easy two hour drive south-east of Mumbai. I arrived there by car taking the Mumbai-Pune highway. The peaceful highway just seems to end somewhere near the edge of town. We turned left onto a local road and before long were surrounded by people, car horns, auto rickshaws and head-splitting, edgy vitality.

I was in Pune to visit the site of the Shirke Group, a multi-disciplinary civil, mechanical and electrical engineering consortium with global technology tie-ups. Their facility is a true giant, housing a diverse range of products. Nine integrated plants and more than 12,000 people are spread out over a 63-acre parcel of land in the Mundwa suburb of the city.

The journey across town from the hotel is an interesting one. Like many Indian cities, Pune is a rapidly modernising construction site. Buildings, roads and bridges are being thrown up all over the place. Ramshackle in places and remarkably pristine in others, Pune is a spirited and bustling place.

Arriving at Shirke’s facility you are transported into an exclusive hive of activity. It is another community altogether. My affable host at the Shirke site was Mr CN Nandurdikar, General Manager Construction Equipment and Machinery Division. I met Mr Nandurdikar for dinner the evening before visiting the Shirke complex. He was lively, entertaining and interesting company.

Shirke’s factory is so large that you need a car to comfortably get around it. From Mr Nandurdikar’s office, following a delightful, home prepared lunch of traditional Indian food, our first port of call was the office of Mr BG Shirke himself. Mr Shirke is the charismatic, vivacious, inspirational founder and chairman of the company. His lavish office is the beating heart of his company’s growing body of work. Mr Shirke is nearly 90 years of age yet carries himself like a man less than half that age.

Our final port of call was the company’s cricket academy. A perfectly manicured playing area was covered with children and coaches when we arrived. The New Zealand national cricket team used these facilities to train at during a tour to India several years before. I was tempted to grab a bat and have a hit but, quite wisely, thought better of it. Being made to look foolish by someone barely reaching waist height is not the sort of thing that leaves a good impression. Sitting next to the cricket oval is a nondescript shed housing the Shirke Group’s helicopter and Mr Shirke’s collection of vintage Mercedes Benz cars.

After that I was whisked away to continue my Indian adventure. Little did I know what was in store for me over the next two days.

In the back and beyond

Belpahar is not an easy place to find. The town is well off the beaten track: a forty-minute drive from Jharsuguda, which in turn is a more than ten hour, 500km, overnight train journey west of Kolkata. Add to that a couple of flights to get me and my traveling companion from Pune to Kolkata, via Mumbai, and it would be fair say I was knackered by the time we finally arrived at the headquarters of Tata Refractories Ltd. But at least my bag turned up with me in Kolkata.

The train was hours late getting into Jharsuguda meaning we missed our appointed mid-morning meeting time. It had only taken me a day in India, however, to appreciate that delays are a matter of course. I learnt pretty quickly to just go with the flow. The bonus was that when we arrived on site we were treated to a substantial multi-course lunch. I just had to try everything so we were there for a while. Eating hot spicy food in a hot spicy country was as much of a test of my constitution as the train ride, although substantially more pleasant!

The Tata Group

I was in Belpahar to visit Tata Refractories’ plant. The Tata Group is one of India’s biggest corporations, the equivalent of about 2.8 per cent of the country’s GDP, and employs 246,000 people. It comprises 96 operating companies in seven business sectors: information systems and communications; engineering; materials; services; energy; consumer products; and chemicals.

Jamsetji Tata founded the Group in the mid-19th century, a period when India had just set out on the road to gaining independence from British rule and it now has operations in more than 54 countries across six continents, and its companies export products and services to 120 nations.

Consequently, Jamsetji Tata and those who followed him associated business opportunities with the objective of nation building. Tata and his successors were Richard Branson-type entrepreneurs in India before the concept, let alone the reality, of Branson and his Virgin empire was even considered.

Driving from the reception building to the factory at the Belpahar plant we passed what initially appeared to be a curiosity. A distinguished looking statue of a gentleman clad in 19th Century garb rose out of the middle of a round-a-bout. I was later to learn this was a representation of Jamsetji Tata, the founder of the company and a person revered in much the same way as a saint would be in many other parts of the world. This was a surprise because where I come from business leaders are not usually the focus of this type of admiration.

Before long we were back in the taxi and on our way to the train station, via the hotel for a shower and a change of clothes. I had another overnight train journey to look forward to, but thankfully this time we had a first class sleeper cabin booked. My head hit the pillow and I didn’t wake up until we reached the outskirts of Kolkata, ten hours later.

My Indian article is too long for one post, so here’s part two…