"East is East, West is West and Never the Twain shall meet" or so went Sir Rudyard Kipling's saying. All those of you who have worked closely with folks in the West may agree that Sir Kipling was right in whatever he said!
Well, I have been working very closely with friends on the other side of the globe for the past 4 years and from the interactions and the visits, I have concluded that there are differences between East and West, some of those kind which will never ever be bridged.
When I started off in this industry and during my initial interactions with the Westerners (for ease of description!), I have often wondered why they are so particular about time and so paranoid about small things. For example, if you tell them that it is raining heavily, the immediate next question would be whether there is a flood threat; if you tell them that there has been a minor bomb blast, the immediate next question will be whether you will shut down or if you tell them that 3 of your team members are sick, the immediate next question will be whether there is a pandemic Flu threat and if yes, what was the back up plan!
I used to get amused, surprised and sometimes highly irritated when I had to respond to these queries and put my friends at ease. 6 visits to North America later, I should say, I understand and appreciate the concerns of my friends. Imagine life in a part of the world where the weather could change next minute. It will be bright sunshine all around and in just half hour, your street could be flooding. In the early winter, you go out for a movie with family and the running time of the movie could be just enough for the parking lot to be covered with snow. It will be time to take out your showel (if you have one safely in the boot, that is!) and shove your way out of the parking lot! When you are born into a part of the World where this is the way of lif e and have grown up experiencing this and much worse stuff, how will you end up not being paranoid? And if all this was not enough, there was the big 9/11. The earlier instances are where nature plays spoilsport and these are stuff that happens when fellow human beings play spoilsport!!!
From what I have seen of the World, I think I can safely conclude that we, as Indians are quite a spoilt lot. We take almost everything for granted- weather, people, time, the list is endless. We dont care about what time of the day we get up, how late we turn up for appointments and how casually we treat others- especially subordinates at work and women folk at home. We do things the way we feel like doing and we want everything and everyone else to change according to our whims and fancies. Else, we sit and whine, shout or complain but not take that one single step to put things straight. I say "WE" because I realize, rather shamefully, that I too am no different from many of my friends...
One visit to the West and if you stay long enough to see how seasons and weather change circumstances, you will clearly understand how easy life is in our part of the globe and what are the additional challenges our friends in the West have to encounter besides the ones at work!
I am not saying that we also need to have the kind of variations in Weather that the West experiences but it defnitely is high time we analyzed and understood the difficulties of being in a part of the World where anything could be a threat to things as simple as your daily routine/ schedule. Let us understand the importance of time, what people mean to us and how we should take independent charge of our life and decisions, just the way friends on the other part of the Globe do!
Let us change our attitude, the way we look at things and see how things improve all around us. It is not a big task, but I bet the results will give you a pleasant surprise! Do TRY IT :-)
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