From Vaks & Co
The Germans had thoroughly prepared for the welcome. To make their new foreign colleagues feel at home from the start, the employees of Frankfurt-based software company Portum went through an intercultural training session.
And they were ready: Indians eat rice 
and take their shoes off before entering the house 
, the company’s German computer specialists learned. And Indians greet each other by laying the palms of their hands together with their fingers pointing upward. Then they bow their heads and say, “Namaste.”
The Germans did exactly that when they met Jagjit Sethi for the first time, but were stunned by their new colleague’s reaction: He simply greeted them with a friendly “hello” and tried to shake hands, as is custom in most of the Western world. “We all had a good laugh,” Mr. Sethi recalls.
Nevertheless, he did find his colleagues’ questions rather strange at first: How do your jeans feel? You are wearing Levis for the first time, aren’t you? Do you have pool tables in India, too? Those questions struck Mr. Sethi as odd because Indians do not view it as a paradox that modernity and tradition can coexist.
Excerpt of an atricle by Chidanand RajGhatta Inside Intel, outside Infosys- The Economic Times
The dynamics between Intel and Oregonians, including its politicians, is interesting in the context of the nasty spat between Deve Gowda and Infosys and the larger debate about the relationship between the political class and business/industry in India. Having recently returned from Bangalore, the bracing air of Portland, Oregon was certainly uplifting compared to the toxic ambience in my hometown. I am talking about the political atmosphere.
At an event Intel hosted to showcase their new technologies, two of the invitees were Senator Gordon Smith, the Republican lawmaker from the state, and Governor Ted Kulongoski, a Democrat. The most striking aspect of their presence - besides the fact they came from opposing parties and they came without flunks or entourages - was how eager they were to be there and how visibly happy they were to be associated publicly with Intel.
They gushed about how much Intel’s presence meant to the state and the high-paying tech jobs Intel had created. They pushed Intel to invest more in the state, promising to do all they could help. They wore Intel on their sleeve.
It was a world away from Bangalore, India, where politicians are still in mortal fear of being seen as pro-business or pro-industry and a populist position espousing freebies and subsidies is seen as electorally more viable than generating economic activity and creating jobs. The second course is too long term, and too much hard work.
The issues that face India are not very different from those that faced the US not too long ago, and still do to an extent. When Intel first began prospecting for a site outside Silicon Valley to set up a fab plant in the early 1980s, it looked for a state with plentiful power, clear water and air, and a raft of tax breaks. (These criteria, by the way, still holds good, and India’s inability to meet them has stalled Intel from building a fab facility, although a group of NRIs backed by rival AMD has stepped up to the plate now.) Oregon promised all this and more after a rousing debate about the deleterious effect of the fab plant and the cost of the tax breaks the state was to give. A fab plant sucks up massive amounts of power and water. Intel was also seeking huge write-offs. Could the state afford it? Of course, businesses will always seek to maximize profits, but it is also the state’s business to extract maximum benefits.
This is the dynamic that has worked in Oregon. Over the years, the political class in the state has come to believe that the breaks it gave Intel have paid off in the form of high-paying jobs the company has brought to the area and the investment it has made locally, including in schools and college.
Defined as:
An arranged marriage is a marriage in which the marital partners are chosen by others based on considerations other than the pre-existing mutual attraction of the partners.
My observations of some variations of this:
1. “Arranged-love marriage” : couple who have never met before, are setup for a date and then fall in love conveniently.
2. “Love-Arranged marriage”: couple in love, but keep it hidden from parents and relatives, will scheme to get parents to arrange marriage to one another.
This concept of marriage is neither antiquated nor irrelavent in today’s age - it is actually well and being practised just slightly differently in the modern world due to an important reason - laziness!
Actually, it could just be being too busy to fall in love. The categories are just two: first generation immigrants and the rest.
The first gen are still very old school - hesitating to go against wishes of parents unless it falls under the sub category identified earlier. Plus, working your a** off here does not give you time to find your soul mate. In the grand scheme of everything that the West is good at, this task is “outsourced” to parents. Parents will do the market analysis, segmentation, target list identification and some basic pre-qualification, allowing the person here in the West to fly home, meet/date all the candidates, make a proposal and quickly seal the deal. Sound familiar? Cases where the name of the groom has been filled out, and blank space is reserved to plug in the bride’s name on pre-designed invitations is not uncommon.
The second and third, well frankly are fairly confused. The expectations are different, and the generation gap is fairly wide. Time tested strategies of parents hooking you up with a stranger is an abhorrent thought, and since the fairly land perfect match is the base expectation, every person you meet is a disappointment. Plus add to the fact that you’d like to marry an Indian only if you could find one that is right for you! There is the market definition for the billion dollar industry of matchmaking that is waiting for your money…
Every PIO (person of Indian Origin) has horror stories of matchmaking meets gone bad, wrong photos submitted (watch this space for a hilarious story from Barkha), and eagerness to meet a partner resulting in outright lies.
So, here’s the call - write to us about your experiences - did it work out for you? Do you have your soulmate? Be sure to mention what generation you are from… selected stories will be published and interviewed! Use comments below, of send an email to roger at zvmedia.com
India Uncut captures the essence of the Indian Undercurrent website, saying
Amir is absolutely right when he writes that that the “Bollywoodization of the Indian media” has come about because of market forces, because that’s what the majority of the consumers want. And any change for the better must come from the market as well. I don’t see the market changing its preferences anytime soon, which means that the minority of discerning readers who want more will have to turn elsewhere to be satisfied. That opens up a niche for whoever wishes to fill it, and is able to serve that need well. Who will that be?
Welcome Amit!
Folks, a post I recently read reminded me of the evolution of the Indian accent in Hollywood. The very first memory of seeing someone remotely Indian was in the kids movie “Short Circuit” - played by Fisher Stevens the whitest guy you could find! As usual, Stevens played the sterotypical Indian nerd, but lets be honest I was glad he was even there in the movie.
Soon after, I remember seeing Vijay Amritraj the Indian tennis star in a James Bond movie.I always mixed him up with the other Amritraj - Ashok. He’s a successful Hollywood Producer with over 92 movies to his credit.
IMDB says this about him:
As Chairman and CEO of Hyde Park Entertainment, Ashok Amritraj is one of the most successful producers in Hollywood today…
He came to the U.S. from India to play professional tennis with Jerry Buss’ L.A. Strings, with teammates Chris Evert and Ilie Nastase, winning a World Team Tennis Championship in 1978 and the Most Valuable Player Award. Amritraj has played in every major tennis tournament during his nine-year career including Wimbeldon and the U.S. Open. Part of the Amritraj tennis dynasty, he was also a finalist at the 1974 Wimbledon Junior Tournament. He is on the Foreign Film Board of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, a member of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts and is on the International Council for the Emmy Awards.
And then, I missed out seeing Indian accents for some time until just recently - in the ![]()
Guru which is back to Indian accents.
Now, with the emergence of Indie cinemas, there are tons of movies that talk about immigrant Indians, such as “Green Card Fever” and others. I personally liked Flavors which does a much more modern job at depicting the spectrum of immigrants and does not stoop to stereotype as the only form of humor. 
Finally, the Gurinder Chaddha classic that almost all non-Indians have seen has got to be “Bend it like Beckham”:
Drop me a line if you have any other good movies in mind that you’d like for us to review.
