India
"I'm going
to live in India". For a westerner sounds crazy.
For a Brazilian sounds almost bizarre. I decided to finish my Master (MBA)
in Calcutta,
at the IIM - Indian Institute of Management, among the top Asian Business
School.
According to my School in Spain (the Instituto de Empresa), we could choose
among
40 top business schools in the world for the final semester. I choose Calcutta.
Obviously, everybody ask me why I went to India instead of going to
America, Germany, Italy or Sweden. Before you ask me the same I tell you I
wanted to learn more than business theories, more than finance or marketing.
Nowadays I can affirm we people from the west have no idea what eastern
countries are about. And if you only visit them you won't understand
them at all. You will see poverty and will think India or Vietnam is the end
of the world. I confess I thought the same during my first weeks in Calcutta.
But you have to open your eyes, open your soul, read about their history and
finally comprehend eastern values and beliefs. Then you learn how to see yourself
differently and improve your life from mixing the good things of western and
eastern cultures.
(Click here to visit the Indian Institute
of Management)
In the two pictures below I am in Agra, in front of the astonishing Taj Mahal
and
getting back from it in a rickshaw.
I traveled more than a thousand kilometers by train from Calcutta to Delhi
and then a bus to Agra just to see the Taj Mahal.
In total I spent
about 5 months in India (1 week in Nepal).
In my first day I visited school facilities such as the one below:
the MCHV - Management Center for Human Values. In this building I
had classes of "Management from Indian Great Traditions".
Below you can see the exchange students for this term (2001).
upper row (from the left): Benoit, Celine, Sebastien and Yvan (all from Belgium)
middle row: Rune (Denmark), Nacho (Spain), Newton (Brazil)
lower row: Mels (Netherlands), Akshaw (Norway), Jacob (Sweden) and Runar (Norway).
Njäl (Norway) and Juan (Colombia) arrived some days later.
In India you have to drive carefully, and remember: always "blow the
horn".
Below: Pedestrians also have to be alert.
Downtown Calcutta you find traffic signs like this:
"Be Cautious! Accident prone zone".
