We spent a slightly limbo week in Bangalore, there is always much that we want to get done but everything does seem to take such a long time. Either through getting across the city (Bangalore is about the size of London but seems even bigger when you really don’t know your way around…and neither does the rickshaw driver that is taking you!), or placing orders in broken English/Tamil/Hindi/Kannada on the phone only to have to start again and wait when you get there! The Indian’s that we meet certainly do work hard, but in a different way to we are used to in the UK, they think nothing of waiting, so are happy to make you wait (which can be frustrating) but equally happy to wait as long as you need to make a decision or twenty…which is amazing for me as decisions are not my strong point - particularly when it comes to colours or choices of amazingly beautiful beads or fabrics.
Men staff most of the shops here and I love the way they flourish the fabrics open on the table, or pinpoint the most minute details in the cloth, or notice the subtle differences in the colours of stones or beads. They seem here to have such an outstanding eye for aesthetic detail that is ingrained that I have never noticed so much elsewhere…although I can’t say have ever done so much shopping for materials of all kinds so maybe I would find the same at home.
So we have been sourcing yet more materials and dodging the closures for Hindu festivals (it is well and truly festival season at the moment) to be able to buy more of the same that we need for developing more samples here, developing ideas for packaging and meeting with a graphic designer who should be able to help us through the task of conversing with the printers. She is India and she too voiced her frustration at trying to get anything done, so it isn’t just a cultural difference.
It is amazing to be given the opportunity to work here, I feel very fortunate to be able to see this side of life in India. It also has made me realise just how difficult working across cultural boundaries can be. How could I just have expected to come here, knowing so little of the country and it’s people, and expecting everything to work like clockwork…? Blind optimism seems to get you a long way!
We are now once again, back in the welcome tranquillity of the project.
We returned with a bag of toffees for the ladies that cost us 170 Rupees, shamefully we hadn’t batted an eyelid at this but they couldn’t believe how that we had spent that much on sweets! They are enjoying them all the same, or more so perhaps.
The ladies are happy, well & busy. This area of Tamil Nadu is baking in un-seasonally hot & sunshiny weather. Although this can make working in a building with a tin roof sweltering, particularly when the power (and therefore fan) is off between the scheduled times of 4 & 6pm, it is making Lottie happy as she says that finally the light is better for her photographs. (I think they are beautiful already - more to follow when we get back to full internet on Friday.)
Tonight our chapatis for supper were kept warn by David Cameron & Alister Darling - they had been wrapped in a copy of the Financial Times with a photo of them perfectly situated on the top!
Very amusing to see the meal eaten courtesy of Cameron and Darling as they featured heavily later in th week over the spending review (but international develoment ring fenced). Interesting to hear about how engrained seems to be the aesthetic quality in peole that you meet. I wonder if there is any aspect of how they are brought up in families or through educational influence to appreciate their visual surroundings? Difficult to imagin any genetic aspect but the world is full of suprises!
ReplyDeleteRobin x