Pondering Along

I know, I’ve been talking quite enough about how different the culture and pace of life here is. Still, every day I seem to encounter something new I have been taking for granted but which here certainly isn’t that obvious. Take Nadeesha, my colleague for example. She just happily told me that her brother was visiting from the UK. And that was not just only another happy reunion, but it had been five years since she last saw him. I mean, think about not seeing a family member in five years...Quite rare where I come from, unless you are not talking to each other.



On Saturday we had a company function, a cricket tournament. Cricket here is holy. It’s like there is no other game. Where ever there is a piece of field there are always some youngsters batting the ball. Strangely enough the national sport of this country is volleyball…

So, there we were on the field, DJ spinning some tunes (actually, I’m sure there must be some kind of a universal DJ set, since the same stuff always gets played no matter the city, country or continent.) and people relaxing and enjoying each other’s company. Now, here I want to point out two differences. Firstly, the event was on a Saturday. Now let’s think about it. How many people in the West would voluntarily “sacrifice” one day of their weekend to do anything company related? I have to guess. Err…not that many. A good example: the outdoor activity day that we organized at Infosys. 9 co-workers out of 250 something actually showed up.

Secondly the cricket part was not there only as an excuse to booze and party (at least not for the majority). The first pitch was to be thrown at 7:30AM. All though there was a tap and the beer was free, you could only spot a few people actually enjoying this treat (including myself and Teresa, my German colleague-to-be). It was quite delightful for a change to attend a company social event where drinking was not the main issue. Or, you know how the supposed main issue is something you just look forward to getting done with (usually some boring official ceremony) to be able to move on to the climax of it all, that being the party afterwards.