Intern'l Business College

unique

I'm taking a class in International Studies, and the country is India. Since I have 10 questions, that need to be answered, can I get some input from anyone out there regarding the first 2 tonight? Remember, my teacher asked me to ask.

1- Are American products readily available to the general public?
2_ Are the customs and cultural behavior of the past still followed?

Thanks for responding.

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Unique

Samsara

1 & 2) Scenario - My first week in Sydney after immigration from India, my Dad takes me to meet the headmaster at the local primary school. As a properly brought up Indian child should, I politely stay silent and let the adults speak. As a result, the headmaster assumes I don't speak English and also since I'm from the "Third World" I mustn't have received any education. Result, I'm put back in kindergarten and spend the next coupla years or so quite bored in class ('cept for music), waiting for the other kids to learn how to read, write and progress beyond those dinky coloured blocks to real 'rithmetic. Luckily, I was then transferred to a convent school by my parents where the nuns (used to migrant children) exclaimed over my lovely BBC accent, insisting I read some of the lessons at mass (even the non-Catholic kids had to go to mass and confess their sins, boring the poor priest out of his mind - I made up my sins 'cause I couldn't think of any). The nuns gently explained to me that Coleridge was not what they meant when they said to bring a favourite writer to school (I was only 9 and didn't understand why other kids wouldn't like Coleridge's poems...also, managed to wrestle "Ivanhoe" out of the convent library the same year after some initial resistance).

Me, a few years later, 12 or 13 (had lost my BBC accent by then), at a Multicultural Day in Australia. Ernest academic looking male in his 30s or so, Aussie of Anglo/Scottish/Welsh/Irish etc background decides to do the trendy multicultural and be kind to kiddies thing and asks moi "So, I guess you never had Coke in India, you must have been really excited to first drink Coke when you got here" (not his exact words, but along those lines...). I said, No, we had Coke and Fanta in India (I believe Coca Cola had a bottling plant in India way way back, don't know about now). That killed the conversation. (Well, first of all, he got my origins wrong, poor guy, he said, "Guess you must be from -----can't remember the country, Iran, Russia, Morocco, who knows? and then the next question was the Coke question. I'm sure he vowed after that, never talk to strange kids again.) I used to get very strange questions and assumptions in Oz about India and when I told the truth, often people didn't believe me, so I kind of gave up after that. And sometimes, they were disappointed when you didn't meet their preconceived ideas - then I used to feel bad...like my lovely high school English teacher that had probably arranged this whole text (stories set in India) for me, and then got disappointed I didn't know much about what was in the stories (was the wrong language and the wrong part of India - India is a big place...more diverse than Europe...).

Don't worry, Unique, you'll get a different answer every time depending on which "Indian" you ask ("let me count the ways..", as Elizabeth B Browning put so aptly...should be "let me count the peoples, languages, religions, tribes, faiths, ethnicities, economic statuses...).

Re Question 2 - Things have been changing in India since the beginning of time...I don't know, again depends who you ask.

Ask yourself, would you apply such a broad and sweeping question to the whole of the USA - and then realise India is a much much more culturally diverse area than the USA. It would be better to focus on one village for example - I read recently that in some villages, think it was in UP perhaps, they might not have running water yet, but they certainly have access to mobile 'phones and even the internet (enterprising person in village sets up the phone or puter, probably on lease? and then hires it out by a set time to the villager who might have a relative working overseas.) However, not all Indians are villagers.

Oops, should I delete this message - have I blown the "mystique" and "squalor" of the East and all that...Sorrrrrry........

Um, I take it all back, none of the above is true. I made it all up.

sgeneris

Unique - your questions are rather too general. Like Samsara (aptly) said India is very diverse culturally and economically too.

(1) are the american products available to Indians?- yes -if they can afford it. Lot of auto companies rushed to India in Mid 90s to 'conquer' the 250 million strong middle class. Only to realize a few years later- that the 'middle' class in India may not really have the means to buy cars in the numbers they do in West. (i love when big companies with huge marketing research groups come with such lousy projections!). Much of India is still rural and may not look at the western products with the same 'eye' for utility as an average westerner would do. Market liberalization has happened in last 10 or so years and has made western/american products more common.

(2) Ditto Samsara. It is very hard to generalize 1 billion people that are much more diverse than any other country in the world (well maybe china-but i have a feeling that the communism has brought up some 'homogeneity'/uniformity in the chinese population whereas India has been almost 'unstirred' .) Having said that Indians are very traditional people.

steven_ber

You can have a thousand questions answered by a thousand people; however, one week in India will give you an insight that no Q & A's can.

Q & A's are fine for most Countries, but not India.

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How to get helpful replies to your transport/Itinerary questions.


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RAC & Waitlists explained.

Samsara

www.mouthshut.com is a site I came across recently. It is an Indian site that invites Indians to post their reviews and opinions on all things "brand". I suppose this site would give you a sample of what current "middle" and "upper" markets in India like. Johnny Walker Black Label is still "in", I see - don't know if you can actually buy it in India but it always used to mysteriously appear when needed...travellers, a genuine bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label taken into India will WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE. However, Johnny Walker is from Scotland.

Samsara

Effective marketing in India in action - see how it's done - the Duke of Argyll in action, promoting Chivas in India (read this article a few months ago) -

http://www.uppercrustindia.com/10crust/ten/people3.htm

Samsara

Mon dieu, I'm in shock - I decided to do a quick google search "whisky whiskey india market" and the results were extremely interesting. India is the world's number 1 consumer of premium whisky/whiskey, the USA is only the second market. No wonder Pernod is sweet talking Indians...The strange thing is though, this stuff has only been available coming in as duty free or in super luxury hotels or clubs.

Article excerpt from http://www.foodanddrinkeurope.com/news/news.asp?id=1954
"India consolidates position as number one whisky market

25/03/03 - When you think of major whisky markets, India is unlikely to spring to mind, but the sub-continent was the largest global market for whisky, in all its variants, last year, according to a new report from Canadean.

The report said that whisky, or whiskey, consumption in India reached around 52 million cases in 2002, some 20 per cent higher than that of the US, the second-largest market."

Even by Indian standards I spent my childhood in the sticks, but now I realise I lived in the most happening places in the world...for example, Sijua Club, Sijua early 1970s "the most happening place in the world".

unique

Thanks for all of your input. I keep hearing about how diverse this country is...not surprising with all of the languages.

I've only traveled to Germany and have found that many foreign countries prefer their language spoken. Since the English language is spoken in India, how many of you took the challenge and learned to speak one of the many dialects that are used in India?

In addition, how are Americans perceived in Inda? Are we selfish, too much care for things verses others? What's your take?

wonderwomanusa

I've learned some Hindi over the years, though not very much. I keep thinking I will take some lessons here, but that day never comes. I've never felt a great need to be fluent in Hindi -- so many Indian people speak English as well as (or better than) mine.

In 1971, Americans were hassled a little for giving guns to Pakistan (Mrs. Gandhi's India was aligned with the Soviets in those days). Still, I was always treated with friendliness and hospitality; they were never mean about it. And last time I was in India, the subject barely came up.

Samsara

"...many foreign countries prefer their language spoken. Since the English language is spoken in India, how many of you took the challenge and learned to speak one of the many dialects that are used in India?..."

The problem in India is they are not actually dialects, but separate languages. For example, Tamil has no relation to Hindi. Hindi dominates in large parts of the North but not all parts, so other Indians, having great pride in their own languages, do not necessarily want to learn Hindi. Many Indians are trilingual or more, many are bilingual, many are unilingual....it's a big problem. The policy was to put forward Hindi as a substitute for English but this has created its own issues (Comrade Chatterjee, I respectfully ask you stop speaking Hindi in National Parliament! Why is the language of Tagore not good enough! and so on...)

Samsara

...at which the Member from Bihar interjects, in the true language of the sons of the soil, "Don't worry, don't worry, Chatterjee-ji is speaking Bihari not Punjabi". Which brings sighs of relief from Bengal, Bihar, Rajasthan, Kerala, Tamil Nadu et al. The prospect of Punjabi Hindi domination is truly too awful to contemplate - and there is enough of it in Bollywood movies...

Samsara

At which point, a member of the Punjabi Language Preservation Society stepped forward to deny he spoke Hindi, Sonia Gandhi smirked because for once nobody was targeting her Hindi, Urdu speakers and ghazal poets tentatively suggested a return to High Hindustani and Abdul Kalam-ji managed to utter the word "peace" simultaneously in 10, 001 Indian languages and dialects. A Tibetan speaker from Arunachal Pradesh was too busy with mantra meditation to notice the fuss...

unique

Hey Wonderwoman,

Good to know since my daughters was thinking about studying one.

unique

Samsara-

I think cultural pride would be lost to a large degree if one language was instituted.

unique

Good evening all,

Here are 2 more questions for today...
#1
How well educated were the people who inhabited the state that you lived in or visited?

#2
How are women treated in that particular area? Did they receive the same opportunities as men?

Thank you.