Charlie Bell – Time in India – Week 2 Reflection

July 25, 2017

Time in India seems to be broken into “stated time” and “actual time,” and schedules rarely seem to go as planned. This last week we had meetings rescheduled, cancelled, and a couple that happened to go as planned. In addition to the many changes in schedule there was also significant less of an emphasis on time. When I’m at school or home things are very different. Everyone is expected to be on time, everything is scheduled to seemingly the exact minute, and everyone wants to be constantly updated. Showing up on time is considered late, and showing up early is on time. I wouldn’t say it was a difficult adjustment to be made though – we still ended up having all of the meetings, and once I got used to the fact that not every meeting was guaranteed to happen at the set time it really wasn’t bad.

The service overall has been great and very impressive, but “two minutes” doesn’t necessarily mean two minutes. In the first week I tried getting an iron for my room. I figured I may just be able to pick it up, but the concierge told me they’d bring it up. After an hour of waiting in my room the iron still hadn’t arrived and I needed to head out. The next day I went down and asked again. After 30 minutes I called down to ask for the iron, and then it came in another 20 minutes. That’s sort of the mentality around things though, it’ll get done when it gets done. There is less of a strict emphasis on getting things done immediately. With that said, there is still an emphasis on getting things done. People simply tend to prioritize things that need to get done first. The iron didn’t get to me in time because they had more important things. Inequality certainly exists on a large scale here, and sometimes I’m just not at the top of everyone’s list.

Other than adjusting to the differences in urgency this last week went smoothly. We had our presentation at The Glitch that went very well. They were all impressed with our analysis of the market, and our presentation went about as well as we could have hoped for. We had a fancy dinner at the house of an old friend of our professor, which was an interesting cultural experience for me but I’ll get more into the details of that in my next post.

Written By

Charles Bell

My name is Charlie Bell, and I am a business major currently pursuing a marketing concentration. My program while on this DOC is Marketing in Asia. I grew up in Wells, Maine - a small coastal town in southern Maine. Like most college students, the appeal of studying abroad for me is in the opportunity it provides to experience a different culture while gaining credits at the same time. More specifically, I was drawn to this particular dialogue for the valuable experiences it will provide for me to use in both my everyday life, and in my business career for many years to come. I believe we are all shaped by the environment in which we are raised in, and I am looking forward to having my own personal views tested as I learn about a culture and society far different than my own.