Lesson in Breathing, TaeguTec, and InfoSys

I don’t want to turn this into a health blog, but it has dominated my days recently. And, it has been a learning experience. It is amazing how much we take for granted. We think little about numerous daily activities unless the flow is disrupted. So, after feeling much better during the afternoon yesterday, I was forced to realize the importance of the simple act of breathing through my nose. As I lay down to sleep, I found that my nose was so completely clogged that I couldn’t breathe one bit out of my nose. This posed a bit of a problem because breathing only through the mouth is not that easy when trying to sleep. Plus every three breaths resulted in a hacking cough. I tried everything – sleeping in the chair, piling pillows at the head of the bed and trying a semi-prone sleep, trying to sleep on my side, etc. But nothing worked. This went on for a while and I finally must have fallen asleep at some point as the next thing I remember is the alarm going off and waking up, breathing through my left nostril! It was interesting to realize how important nose-breathing is to sleeping. Something so simple and basic can disrupt processes significantly when out of whack. The shower was scalding hot for a change and so I took a LONG extra hot shower to try and clear out my sinuses. It did make me feel a little better and ready to face the day with a slightly clear head. However, the more I think about my situation, I think it would be crazy to go on the all-day sight-seeing excursions planned for the weekend. Since the sigh-seeing visits are optional for everyone, that may be good for me to miss and use the time to visit a doctor here or in Bangalore.

The morning’s speaker was Mr. L. Krishnan, Managing Director of TaeguTec India. TaeguTec is a Korean company in the cutting tools industry. He provided some background of his industry and then spent an hour or so answering questions from the group. He was very impressive in terms of the breadth of his knowledge and expertise. TaeguTec is also 80% owned by Berkshire Hathaway and was, in fact, the first foreign company owned by Warren Buffett’s group.

The visit to InfoSys in the afternoon was breathtaking. Here was an entire mini-city built on a grand scale. The “Global Learning Center” looks like a massive Roman coliseum. The “Leadership Institute” has a façade resembling the Parthenon with massive columns rising over a broad marble staircase with flowing waterfalls on each side. The campus is surrounded by lush green lawns, water fountains, and massive, elaborate buildings. We were given a tour of the campus that included luxurious villas for faculty accommodations, a 4-screen multiplex theater, a shopping mall, a huge recreation center that included a bowling alley, huge halls for table tennis, badminton, snooker, and more. All in all it was breathtaking, but also a little bit unnerving. It is clear that they are not hurting for money. Some of the students seemed to sense a little arrogance from the speaker, but I think that may just be because the surroundings were all on such a large and garish scale.

The evening was extraordinary. We went to the institute in the evening for a “small and informal” talent show to be put on jointly by the SDM-IMD students and our students. It started late and turned out to be an elaborate cultural show with full costumes, spectacular dances and music. We were overwhelmed. We had little to no talent to share – as was clear when the best we could do was get me up on stage to do some “impromptu lecturing” to the group on some silly topics. Only in India will such a “talent” be appreciated. It was embarrassing but a fun and enjoyable evening.

Sickness and L&T

I can’t believe I am in a shape to type again. Last night and this morning, I was ready (at several points) to give in and call for a doctor. You have already read most of the gory details and they don’t even begin to really demonstrate how lousy I felt. I had one disposable thermometer that showed that I had a fever of 102.7 at one point. Even rolling over in bed was a breathtakingly painful experience with a stupendous headache from completely clogged sinuses. My fever broke at about 6 PM last night and I started feeling better, but then it hit me again at about 8 PM. Come morning, I was still in no shape to even walk around my room and I opted out of the morning lecture at SDM. I knew I had to get out of bed and force myself to rejoin the world and told Al to call me before the site visit to Larsen & Toubro. My morning continued with me drifting in and out of sleep, doing multiple inhalations and taking a long, hot shower at 5 AM. Since I had eaten nothing for over 24 hours, I forced myself to have some toast and cornflakes for breakfast at 9 AM.

Although I was feeling a little better, I was still a little woozy as I headed out for the L&T site visit at noon. They had laid out a sumptuous lunch for us on their campus. After that, we visited several buildings on their campus and were introduced to various L&T divisions. The “tour guide” was actually the head of EmSys, the embedded systems division of L&T. He was a fantastic speaker and very eloquent. He explained everything well and gave us a great insight into the incredible global supply chain management system that is our reality today. For example, L&T sources from Israel and manufactures on German equipment for construction projects in the United Arab Emirates using some IT managers in Mysore. They have product development teams consisting of managers from the client in the USA working with engineers in India. It was a very impressive visit – consistently fascinating. They even left each one of us with a gift. Tomorrow we go across the street to InfoSys.

In the evening, Al and I went shopping for some wine (yes, Indian wines are starting to make a mark in the industry) and a few other things. By the time we were done at about 7:30 PM, I was starting to fade and feel a little woozy again, so we headed back to the hotel and I started another round of inhalation. Still, the fact that I was able to be out almost all afternoon makes me feel better.

Social Consciousness in India

One of the very noticeable social changes is the general optimism everyone here seems to feel about India. Even people we meet on the street seem to be very optimistic about this country’s prospects. The media seems to keep reinforcing the message that India is a major player on the world market. I have a feeling that many of us find it difficult to understand this given the poverty, filth, and infrastructure problems that are so apparent to us Americans. My theory is that things have changed so dramatically in the last ten years or so that their standard of comparison is quite different from ours. However, there is one more change that seems to jump out at me that may not be obvious to those who haven’t lived here before. I see a much stronger sense of social consciousness that I ever saw when I lived here. It’s not just the speakers who integrate examples of social cause efforts into their business presentations. Even in the commercials – so many ads seem to infuse a social cause message into their communications. There’s a cell phone ad that shows two kids staring warily across a barbed wire border and then playing soccer together (VO: There is no barrier we cannot break down if we just communicate with each other). There are ads promoting welfare of the poor, ads focusing on inter-religious brotherhood, ads showing the positive effects of good Samaritans, and much more. And the companies using these ads include business-to-business firms, service firms, and even FMCG firms. Even the mass media seems to be focused on social outrages, with news stories on child trafficking, female molestation, unfair treatment of laborers, and more. It seems like there is a clear recognition facing people here that one of the biggest problems that need to be tackled here is of poverty and disparity of wealth distribution. And if that isn’t a cause for optimism in a country like this, I don’t know what is!

In the morning we headed to a sandalwood factory and a Mysore silk factory. Both of these are government-owned enterprises and again we were confronted with the vast "contrasts" that Pavan Varma keeps talking about in the book Being Indian. We have visited spotlessly clean world-class manufacturing facilities and then there were these. The buildings were crumbling the machinery were almost a century old and the entire place was covered with dirt, dust, and cobwebs. They were proud of the fact that the boiler was imported from Lancashire, England many decades ago. Luckily the plant was not operating because they had run out of raw material (sandalwood), otherwise I'm not sure I would have been comfortable in the boiler room. The Karnataka Silk Factory was more interesting and in full operation, but they're not going to win any manufacturing process awards. Still it was fascinating to see the slender threads of silk being woven into cloth. It was also good to pick up a couple of the local specialties as gifts – sandalwood soap and silk scarves.

On a personal note, I'll admit that last night was one of the more miserable nights I have spent here. My head feels like it has expanded to three times its size and has become filled with a thick, viscous fluid. My upper chest feels the same and even breathing is not that easy. I kept waking up with uncontrollable chills. And (those of you who cannot handle gory details, look away now) every time I woke up, I found the side of my face was sorta stuck to the pillow - I assume from various secretions from my eyes and nose. When I woke up this morning, I looked forward to a HOT shower, but discovered that the water ranges from slightly luke warm to warm with no really bursts of HOT water. Same problem as last night. By the time we were done with the silk factory, I could barely stand. I had run through six handkerchiefs that were now all soaking wet and my headache was intolerable. While the rest of the group headed to SDM-IMD and lunch, about seven of us headed back to the hotel. I decided to skip lunch and crawl into bed. By this time I'm sure I had a raging fever because despite turning down the a/c, I was shivering uncontrollably in bed. I had an undershirt, a t-shirt and a sweatshirt on and I was still cold. I drifted in and out of sleep for a couple of hours and then decided to wash my handkerchiefs in a Dettol (antiseptic) solution and hang them up to dry. I didn't think it would be right to send these hankies through the hotel laundry system. I also got a bowl from the hotel, filled it with boiling water and did about 10-15 minutes of inhalation. My head still feels like it is about to explode and the two Advil don't seem to have done much good. My dinner plan with Prof. Jagadeesh is obviously off and I hope tomorrow is a better day ...

Wild animals and deteriorating throat

We woke up early this morning and headed out on a jeep into the jungle again. We waited vainly for a view of the elusive tiger, but had no luck. In addition to the multitudes of spotted deer, we saw a pack of wild dogs, a wild boar, the herd of elephants again, as well as some interesting birds. By the time we were ready to leave, my cold had exploded to the point where my nose was constantly dripping and I had several soaked handkerchiefs. By this time, my nose was raw and red, joining my hurting throat. I came back to Mysore in the minivan while the students braved the bouncy, broken, and dusty bus. When I got back, I went to a pharmacy and purchased some Sinarest, Cetrizine, and Benedryl with the hope that this would give me enough options to cover me for the day or two it will take to recover from this misery.

I also went out for a great haircut. The salon offered a nice haircut (including head massage), a shave, a shampoo, and a beard/mustache trim for a whopping Rs. 140 (less than $4). Very nice.

Kabini River Lodge - Day 1

Today we headed to the Kabini River Lodge. The trip there was interesting. It was a ramshackle bus (again with no air conditioning) and the fumes and dust were (again) overwhelming. The roads were atrocious and we bounced around for almost two hours before we reached the Kabini River Lodge. Once we got here, time seemed to slow down some. This is a beautiful place with our rooms in British-style bungalows with lovely covered porches extending along the entire front of the building. We could sit in the breezeway and just listen to the sounds of the birds and the rustle of the leaves in the breeze. Very relaxing. Even here, the signs of the flattening world are everywhere. We just took a 2-hour ride on an old bus through rutted and unpaved roads and found ourselves in the middle of an idyllic jungle resort. Still, my cell phone signal was strong and I found a cell tower right next to a colonial bungalow on the grounds. On the drive over, we passed through many tiny villages with miniscule tin shacks that served as general stores and seemed to be no bigger than refrigerator cartons. Yet, many of them proudly displayed “AirTel” (a local mobile phone company). Here. In the midst of extremely rural and poverty-stricken India, I could still buy a SIM card for my cell phone.

We went for a “Jeep Safari” in the afternoon and saw wild elephants, thousands of spotted deer, a Malabar giant squirrel, some sambhar, peacocks, and much more. Quite a trek. My raw throat has grown into a drippy nose and hacking cough.

Chamundeshwari, Srirangapattnam, Brindavan, Mysore Palace

Today was sightseeing day. We had a busy time starting early in the morning. First, we headed to the Shri Chamundeshwari temple on the top of the Chamundi Hills that overlooks the SDM-IMD campus. It was a cool morning and the top of the hill afforded us some spectacular views of the city. After returning and grabbing some breakfast, we visited the spectacular Mysore Palace before heading to Srirangapattnam to see Tipu Sultan’s summer palace, his fort, and the bird sanctuary. Then, we went to the KRS damn and the adjoining Brindavan gardens. On our way back, we stopped back at the grounds of the Mysore Palace to see it lit up. It was like a fantasy land and a sight to see.

It was a long day, but quite fun-filled. The hard part was traveling long distances in non-air-conditioned vehicles. It is not the temperature that bothers me but the constant blowing of exhaust fumes, dust, and smoke on your face. At the end of the day, my slightly scratchy throat was raw and I could feel congestion filling my chest.

Critical Evaluation of Marketing Students and AT&S

This morning, I was ready by 8 AM. Ramesh and Rahul Venkateswaran came at about 8:10 and picked up Harvey, Gene, and me. We first went to the golf course and dropped off Harvey, Gene, and Rahul for their round of golf and I headed to the institute to meet with the reporter.

I really did not know what to expect and what she wanted from. Still, I had thought of a few things to talk about like how business education in India and US differ. Her first question threw me off completely. She said she had read my CV and was interested in an article I had published about the quality of undergraduate marketing students in the US. She wanted me to detail why I had done the study and what the findings and implications were. I was completely taken aback and tried to cover the key findings of the study. We then talked about the US academic system and the goal of increasing globalization and the importance of global exposure for students around the world. She said she would send me a link to the article in a few days, but given the range of our discussions, I have no idea what the focus of the article will be.

In the afternoon, we headed to AT&S, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&S (Austria) a printed circuit board (PCB) manufacturing facility. Since they had Austrian executives visiting the plant (and using the conference room), they couldn’t do a presentation for the group but had someone give us a plant tour. It was absolutely fascinating to see exactly how PCBs are made. This plant makes PCBs of all sizes - from cell phones and small auto cruise control circuits to much larger computer boards. They showed us the process of creating multi-layered PCBs, etching, cutting, tinning and de-tinning and more. It was extremely interesting and fascinating to see this spotless manufacturing facility that exports almost all of its output to Austria for further distribution. Basically, they are simply a manufacturing location for the Austrian parent. I guess it makes economic sense for the company. Like every other one of our site visits it reinforces the fact that right now, your cell phone from a Finnish company could have been assembled in Mexico with a PCB from an Austrian company that was manufactured by their plant in India.