Learning India

Making sense of the subcontinent

Filed Under: #IndiasNotIndia, Daily Living

How to Order Indian Food like a Pro

How to order indian food

There may be no more awesome feeling than sitting down at a random South Asian food joint, listing off a string of seemingly unintelligible words and being rewarded with some of the most amazing dishes on the planet.

However, if you have no idea what’s going on, you are stuck watching amazing plates go to everyone else while the waiter brings you a plate of plain rice and bread. What went wrong?

Thankfully, there are Indian restaurants in nearly every corner of the world, so you have plenty of opportunity to practice how to order indian food, even if you don’t stay in the subcontinent. Food is a great way to appreciate the culture, and an even better way to build some relational capital. If you are out with an Indian friend, you should let them order for you, even if you know what you are doing. But if you are on your own, here are some tips to help. [Read more…]

Filed Under: #CustomerIsAlwaysThere, #PowerPlays, Cultural Adaptation, Daily Living

How To Negotiate With Someone Who Earns Less In A Year Than You Do In A Month

 

Negotiating with Working Class

 

Some of the most inspiring people you’ll ever meet come from the working class of India. They often work long hours with no days off. They house their family, educate their children, and put rice on the table, all with a budget that you probably couldn’t last a few weeks on.

The working class of India is inspiring, but is also daunting for many outsiders to deal with, especially when you are face-to-face, trying to negotiate the price of an auto rickshaw ride, or a monthly salary for washing your car.

Overall, I’ve had a tremendous experience with this group of people. At least in Chennai, we’ve found them to be hardworking, friendly, and welcoming to us as foreigners. We can almost always trust the person to do a good job and quote a reasonable rate.

But what is reasonable? How do you know if you are paying the right amount? And what if the right amount seems absurdly low to you? When should you negotiate a better price, and when should you accept your privilege in life as a means to help others?

These aren’t easy questions to deal with, but everyone here has to do it at some point. [Read more…]

Filed Under: #ChaosBeatsLogic, #CustomerIsAlwaysThere, Daily Living, On the Job

The 80/20 Rule in India

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post from Amar Vyas, the author of NRI: Now, Returned to India

 

8020Rule

 

The Pareto Principle, commonly known as the 80:20 rule, says, “for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.” This principle applies to most parts of the world.

But not to India.

In my experience, 20% of the work takes up 80% of your time here. The Pareto principle in India should be referred to as the Oterap principle (that’s Pareto reversed). Not surprisingly, this 20% of work is dependent on others: plumbers, electricians, or maybe even your tax consultant.

Let me give you an example. [Read more…]

Filed Under: #CustomerIsAlwaysThere, Daily Living

Don’t Wait to Read This Until You Need to Read This

Hospitals

 

Where do we go?

My son was playing in front of someone’s house when he took a nasty fall and landed right on his forehead. New parents tend to panic and overreact, but it’s hard not to when a bump the size of a cricket ball is starting to come out of your child’s head.

We didn’t really know where to go or what to do. We had a pediatrician, but her office was far away and she wasn’t there. What do we do?

 

Getting hurt or sick is never fun. It is immeasurably less fun when you do it in a country where you don’t know how the healthcare system works. Look over these tips for taking care of yourself and your family should you find yourself in need of medical attention. [Read more…]

Filed Under: #CustomerIsAlwaysThere, Be Prepared

Opening an Indian Bank Account

Editor’s Note: This was one of the popular topics from the yearly survey of your top questions about India. The survey only goes out to subscribers, so make sure you are on the list to get your questions answered!

 

Opening an Indian Bank Account

 

Opening a bank account in India may seem like an awesome thing. You can transfer money easily with other Indian bank accounts. You can keep the rupees you earn. You can use your Indian debit card in places that don’t accept international cards.

However, it’s can also be a pain. First, trying to open an account could legitimately take 6-12 months off your life when you add up the time wasted and the stress associated with it. Second, it’s very hard to transfer money out of an Indian account directly to an international one. And third, you will have to practice writing your signature exactly the same way forever for the rest of your time in India, or they may not accept any transactions you sign for.

 

Getting an Account

Officially, the only way to open a bank account in India as an expatriate is if you are on an employment visa. That said, I have come across people who have overcome this.

Two things will impact your ability to get a bank account. Neither one is foolproof on its own, but they are your only options.

The first is trying to please the Babu by having all the correct documentation. I visited several banks while researching this article and put together the most comprehensive list I could find (below). However, the Babu is hard to please and will often come up with a mystery form you were not prepared for.

The second is relying on a friend you have good relational capital with. Particularly a friend who is very high up in a bank, or who has considerable influence in a bank. While this is normally a surefire way to get things done in other parts of life in India, the banking industry is quite notorious for being inflexible, even for the culturally savviest of people.

 

Choosing a Bank – 4 Options

There are good reviews and horror stories for every bank, so it’s best to go with one of these options.

  1. The bank your employer uses. They may have some processes streamlined with them, but it’s not guaranteed.
  2. The bank closest to your home. It is painful to drive across town to drop off documents three days in a row because your signature was smudged on one of the forms. Having the bank nearby is a big benefit.
  3. The big name bank. These will likely have a little more experience with expats and are probably a safer option, but are also likely to have more fees.
  4. The bank of the person whom you will rely on to help you. If you have some existing first- or second-hand connections, that is a good bank to go with.

 

Possible Documentation

Here are some of the documents they might require of you. You will not need all of them, but the safe bet is to have as many as possible in place before you go. I’ve starred the ones that are nearly essential.

  • *Passport – The real thing, and a self-attested (signed) copy
  • *Indian Visa – Same as above
  • *FRRO Documentation – Particularly your Residence Permit, and the Police Verification Report that confirmed your address; only people who have registered at the FRRO can open a bank account.
  • *2 Passport sized Photos
  • *Letter from your HR department on company letterhead – It should confirm your employment and mention your current address in India; make sure it also has the contact details of the HR head
  • *ID Proof – A signed copy of your home driver’s license that shows your home address
  • Copy of your employment contract from your employer
  • Indian Residency Proof – A telephone bill or rental agreement copy
  • 3 Months of Salary slips
  • PAN Card – No one specifically mentioned this, but if you happen to have one, a bank account should be pretty easy to get.
  • One mystery document

 

As a final note, make sure that no one tries to sign you up for a NRE/NRO account. These are for NRIs who still hold Indian citizenship.

 

If anyone else has insights or stories to share about opening a bank account in India, please leave them in the comments!

 

 

Image Credit: Peter Gibbons on Flickr

 

Filed Under: Be Prepared

Best Expat Bank Account for India

ATM

I thought I was prepared.

I wanted everything to go smoothly in our transition to India, and finances was high on the list of things I preferred to not worry about. While I was still in the US, I opened an account with a large international bank that I knew had branches and ATMs in India. This should be easy.

When we first arrived, I went to my bank’s ATM to get some cash. There was a notice that they would be levying an additional fee on international cards. Strange, I thought. Shouldn’t they accept the card of their own bank?

I checked our balance online and within about five days I had racked up close to US $80 in fees. Yikes!

I painfully learned that the bank in the US is completely separate from the bank in India, although they have the same name; and therefore, they were charging me additional fees on both sides. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Daily Living, Mark Twain

Mark Twain on the Indian Heat

Brass Knob

 

[Taken from The Complete Works of Mark Twain: Following the Equator, Volume 2, Harper and Brothers: New York, 1925.]

It was winter. We were of Kipling’s “hosts of tourists who travel up and down India in the cold weather showing how things ought to be managed.” It is a common expression there, “the cold weather,” and the people think there is such a thing. It is because they have lived there half a lifetime, and their perceptions have become blunted. When a person is accustomed to 138 in the shade, his ideas about cold weather are not valuable. I had read, in the histories, that the June marches made between Lucknow and Cawnpore by the British forces in the time of the Mutiny were made in that kind of weather–138 in the shade–and had taken it for historical embroidery. I had read it again in Serjeant-Major Forbes-Mitchell’s account of his military experiences in the Mutiny–at least I thought I had–and in Calcutta I asked him if it was true, and he said it was. An officer of high rank who had been in the thick of the Mutiny said the same. As long as those men were talking about what they knew, they were trustworthy, and I believed them; but when they said it was now “cold weather,” I saw that they had traveled outside of their sphere of knowledge and were floundering. I believe that in India “cold weather” is merely a conventional phrase and has come into use through the necessity of having some way to distinguish between weather which will melt a brass door-knob and weather which will only make it mushy. It was observable that brass ones were in use while I was in Calcutta, showing that it was not yet time to change to porcelain; I was told the change to porcelain was not usually made until May. But this cold weather was too warm for us; so we started to Darjeeling, in the Himalayas–a twenty-four hour journey. (203-204)

 
Click here for all of the Mark Twain Selections on India.
Image Credit: Leo Reynolds on Flickr

Filed Under: Cultural Adaptation, Mark Twain

Mark Twain on Cultural Adaptation

Zenana

 

A good lesson in trying to use our own cultural rules to judge someone else’s. In this story, Twain recounts how some Europeans tried to ‘liberate’ some women in India who were used to going around fully covered.

 

[Taken from The Complete Works of Mark Twain: Following the Equator, Volume 2, Harper and Brothers: New York, 1925.]

 

While we were in India some good-hearted Europeans in one of the cities proposed to restrict a large park to the use of zenana ladies, so that they could go there and in assured privacy go about unveiled and enjoy the sunshine and air as they had never enjoyed them before. The good intentions back of the proposition were recognized, and sincere thanks returned for it, but the proposition itself met with a prompt declination at the hands of those who were authorized to speak for the zenana ladies. Apparently, the idea was shocking to the ladies–indeed, it was quite manifestly shocking. Was that proposition the equivalent of inviting European ladies to assemble scantily and scandalously clothed in the seclusion of a private park? It seemed to be about that. [Read more…]

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© Neil A. Miller, LearningIndia.in, and Madras Media Marketing LLC 2013-2015. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given.