TomTom has an office in Pune, a city a few hours inland from Mumbai. It's not as big as the major Indian cities but at 4.5 million people it's still pretty big.
I flew from Boston to London and London to Mumbai and then had a 3-hour taxi ride from the airport to the hotel in Pune. The taxi ride was a great way to get to see a little of Mumbai (formerly Bombay) and since it was a Sunday afternoon the streets weren't nearly as crowded as they would be during the week. It was a good way to ease me into my first trip to a congested Asian city because it still seemed overcrowded to my eyes.
The three things that have struck me most in my days here are the people, the security, and the traffic. The people have been wonderful. From the hotel to restaurants to colleagues in the office, the overall atmosphere is incredibly welcoming and accommodating. There is such an abundance of labor that most places we go have a ridiculously high ratio of employees to guests/customers. (Clearly I'm seeing a fraction of the city and the places frequented by western visitors are going to be more customer-friendly than others, but still it's striking).
When checking into the hotel, there were three bellhops to help with my one bag. At the front desk, while one employee took my information, another got my key and gave an overview of the hotel while another ensured the baggage was being cared for. And every person was super friendly and helpful. It's almost uncommon to have to wait more than a minute when walking into a restaurant or store before an employee offers to help. It's a whole different definition of a service economy when the service is so good and so many people are employed to make your visit to their business a positive one. It can feel a little overwhelming when an employee follows you around a store, but it's just part of the service.
The security has been interesting to see, and is a reminder that I'm in a part of the world that has to deal with the real threat of terrorist attacks. The February bombing of a popular bakery didn't get the international attention that the Mumbai attacks have, but I think it really brought the threat home to Pune. And if the largest segment of the economy is service, the second largest seems to be security (these are just my impressions).
Every hotel, restaurant, office, shopping center, and other place that could be a target has security part of it's operations. And I don't just mean a rent-a-cop like in an American mall. Every time I get back to the hotel, I go through a metal detector and my bags are x-rayed. The taxi in the morning has to stop outside the office building to have it's trunk examined and a mirror run underneath the car. Going into a shopping mall required a metal-detector and a wanding. Everyone just seems to accept that this is part of life, but to an outsider it's striking how pervasive security has become. And it's a huge employer: my hotel employees two men to man the gate and two others to operate the metal detector/x-ray. The office has three at the gate, two inside the gate, one in the parking lot, and one on each floor outside the elevators. It's been a huge boost to the economy and added thousands (millions?) of jobs to a county with an endless supply of cheap labor. I'm not sure I feel any more or less safe, but it's certainly ever-present.
The traffic has also been fascinating to see. The biggest difference I've seen is the variety of vehicles on the roads. In America we have cars, trucks, buses, motorcycles, and more; but they are all capable of going roughly the same speeds. It may take a truck longer to accelerate, but you just don't see vehicles on the roads not capable of driving the speed limit.
Here, there is such a wide variety of vehicles with so many different engine sizes that the traffic is completely different. Add in the ever-present pedestrians who (seemingly) risk life each time they cross the street (without any concepts of real cross-walks) the streets are filled with a huge variety. From smallest to largest, these are what I've seen on the roads:
- Child - Lots of boys running along the streets
- Dog - Mutts of all kinds
- Adult - People walk all over the sidewalk, shoulder, roads, medians
- Bicycle - Not too many, but I hear 20 years Pune was a huge bike city
- Motorbike - These have replaced the bicycles
- Motorcycle - I saw a family of 4 squeezed onto a normal-sized Honda
- Ox - Picture a divided road (a la Route 9 in Boston) with plants in the median that were lunch for a wandering ox
- Auto rickshaw - Slightly larger than a golf cart, they are ubiquitous and despite their slow speeds they travel vie for space in the fast lanes
- Compact car - Not as many Smart cars as in Europe, but you see some tiny cars
- Car - From all sorts of brands, many of which I'd never heard of
- 3-wheel truck - I need to get a picture, but these mini-pickups have three wheels with a
cargo bed in back and go slowly - Small truck - Of many varieties
- Large truck - Cargo trucks supplying the ever-present construction sites (many are brightly painted)
- City bus - Often overflowing during rush hour
Now picture all of these getting to an intersection and instead of staying in their lane each car piles up waiting to cross the road in the way pedestrians in Manhattan bunch up at an intersection. Lane markers in general seem to be only suggestions and at intersections they are totally ignored. On a four lane road (two in each direction), an intersection will have at least 3 cars/trucks, 2 rickshaws, and 3 motorcycles all vying for space meant for two lanes of traffic. They immediately have to merge on the other side of the intersection, but that doesn't stop everyone for jockeying for position at every stop. It's amazing there aren't more accidents, but it somehow all seems to work.
Lots more to share (I'm really starting to like cricket!) later in the week or when I get home next week.
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