The Guest is God... and No Sting

We had a lecture about Indian business ethics which are derived from ancient scriptures. It’s really interesting and I found some of the philosophies to be similar to Buddhist philosophies, but the Indian’s emphasize amassing wealth which I find to be more realistic.

For example the Purushartha Framework (or goals in Hinduism) are:

Dharma (righteousness and the path)

Artha (wealth and material gains)

Kama (fulfillment of desires)

Moksha (Salvation/Bliss)

They also stress that once you have wealth there is no reason for you to be unhappy which I really like. Doesn’t it suck when rich people complain?

From our experiences in the shops in Mysore the customer service is outstanding; it can also be a little intimidating at times. This is due to the saying: “The guest (or customer) is God”. Friedman touches on this saying that not only did India provide adequate service for the Y2K work they were getting great quality and service. It makes me wonder, however, what kind of damage control they have for providing bad customer service if any.

“The poor man is one who cannot give.”

In the evening the official Police Band (NOT the one with Sting… I know, I was pretty disappointed too…) played in the amphitheater at the school for us. I really enjoyed it. It was cultural and pretty chill. However, we were all ushered out and they just started playing. Then they played another song… and nowhere in the duration of this little concert did anyone tell us what the songs were or introduce themselves, so, yeah, that was a little odd. But I’m going to say I enjoyed it.

Here’s something for all the band nerds I know/knew; a couple members came in late and just went to their spots and started playing, they never came in at the same time, the conductor looked like he could not have cared less about being there. Finally, the crème de la crème, one man was playing his solo on his pipe (or something flute-like…) and a cell phone starts to go off. Everyone shifts and checks their phone but it keeps going until the guy playing the solo stops pulls his ringing cell phone out of his pocket, turns it off, and goes back to playing. How many of you would’ve gotten your ASSES handed to you if you tried to pull any of that in high school band?! But, hey, it’s India…

On to the good stuff…

New Years Eve party here was spectacular. We went to Planet X which is like a family amusement park. They converted this big out-door area, the size of a parking lot (an American parking lot) into a buffet with tables, a bar (with drink tickets, boo, I still have some left.) and a DJ with a dance floor.

We had to enter in pairs (because it’s NOT a brothel) and for Rs1350 ($US35) we got buffet dinner, a welcome drink, and a whole lot of dancing under the stars to Indian music (and “Give it to Me” remix… holla!) and a spectacle of a fire works show at midnight!

I bought two beers, took some shots and pulls and then the guys bought bottles and bottles of champagne which were passed around which made for a pretty rough morning.

Also, the groping on the dance floor isn’t as much as in the States, but it is much more deliberate, which is when we took our breaks…