My son just got his first laptop. Nothing very significant about that in this technologically progressive era … except that he’s just turned one, and it’s a Fisher Price model with fat buttons and flashing lights. He’s been obsessed with my laptop, iPad and iPhone since he was able to focus his tiny eyes, and I can’t help but wonder how different his childhood will be from my own.
Growing up in 1970’s England was all about mud pies, skateboarding, hot sticky tarmac and playing in the river near my house. I used to disappear for the whole day, playing complicated make believe games with my friends, my Mum confident in the knowledge that I would return at the end of the day when I was hungry. She couldn’t phone me, SMS me, or track me on Facebook but somehow she wasn’t overly worried. My subsequent teen years, during the great decade of the 80’s, were spent huddled with girlfriends in small groups at bus stops (gossiping about the boys who would be showing off on their chopper bikes and shouting insults at us), obsessively writing my diary (I have diaries somewhere written from age 11 to 18) and feeding two pence pieces into the phone in the now iconic red phone box outside my house calling up my love interests. We communicated via the spoken word, the occasional love letter or by sending messages through friends. Now I wonder how teenagers cope with the vast number of messaging options open to them – they can poke, update, comment, tweet, SMS or blog their intentions. Do they actually ever really talk to each other or is everything contained within their strange teen-write?
I have friends with young and teenage children and it seems that the hottest debates centre around common themes – when to give in to the child’s demands and buy them a mobile phone. When to allow them to have a Facebook account. Whether to give them a laptop or not. The arguments for are persuasive – there is a need to keep an eye on the child, to monitor their movements, to ensure they are ‘controlled’. The arguments against are equally convincing – there’s a desire to retain the child’s ‘innocence’ for as long as possible, to keep them away from undesirable influences and to avoid “spoiling” them with the newest and brightest shiny objects.
What I find most fascinating, moral debate aside, is the anthropological angle. Right now there are still people in the workplace (including me – just) who remember life before the Internet. During my first ever office job in the days before e-mail had arrived on the scene, communication consisted either of phone calls (mainly to landlines as mobiles were only for the elite and very expensive), or in the form of old fashioned memos which would take a day to reach their internal destination, but which ensured that my early formative years were spent having to actually think through what I wanted to say. And if I did write something in haste, I could always go to the post room and pull it out of the outbox tray once I’d thought it through properly. Now I’ll react to something and send back a mail in the blink of an eye, and often regret the content. E-mail is instant and therefore doesn’t encourage a meticulous, thoughtful approach. Everyone is busy, the ‘to do’ lists get longer and longer, and its therefore an easy option to bat ill thought through mails back and forth which can cause a lot of unintentional damage through miscommunication or haste. As the “old generation” is replaced by those who have grown up with the Internet, I wonder how our workplaces will be affected. Sure there have been a lot of positive changes since I started work - the photocopier is largely redundant for one, and there’s no need to spend hours making old fashioned slides for presentations. Making reels for client presentations used to involve a day editing piles of tapes together. Now it can be done with the click of a few buttons – mpegs and links are instantly inserted into PowerPoint presentations. The downside of this is of course that our work is never finished. Whereas once we had to send out the tapes for editing or the slides for converting, today we have no deadline except the meeting itself, which means that invariably we end up rewriting content up until the moment we step into the meeting and sometimes even during the meeting itself. Frankly, it’s exhausting.
That aside, our “instant” information age, with its constant stream of news ‘as it happens’ means that we are often overwhelmed by the sheer number of things happening. In the ‘old days’ we waited patiently for the 9 o’clock evening news to catch up with world events. I remember being on tenterhooks every Tuesday afternoon waiting for the Top 40 countdown, when I’d get to know finally whether my favourite artist had made it to the number one spot. Today I don’t even think the Top 40 exists, at least not in its previous incarnation. Now songs are downloaded and sales are largely irrelevant and artists prosper via their tweets which are picked up by the online newpapers. Twenty years ago, there was enough news to fill two daily hour long bulletins. Today the news streams 24/7. I doubt that there is any more “stuff” happening in the world today, and suspect we have become more interested in all the trivia as well as the big news items. Similarly, today we have hundreds or even thousands of “friends” with whom we keep in constant, but superficial touch. I know what my school friends are up to on a daily basis, regardless of the fact that I haven’t seen them for 20 years or more and that they’re scattered all over the globe. I may know the minutiae of their everyday lives but actually I don’t know anything about what kind of person they have become. I am aware that my friends in Mumbai are in various bars, clubs, parlours, workplaces and even “home” at any given point in time, but I rarely make time to meet them there or have any kind of meaningful discussion with them.
There is no doubting that change is good. But part of me worries that my child will miss out on the simple pleasures which I enjoyed growing up. That he’ll become obsessed with his phone, with his laptop, and have little time for communication beyond that and that he’ll turn into a hyperactive workaholic as deadlines become ever more ridiculous in the workplace. I suppose it’s no different from my secrecy with which I shrouded my own teenage life and the pace at which I’ve always worked, internet or no internet, but I’m already wondering when he’ll ask for his first “proper” laptop with internet connection and what my answer will be.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Farewell then, Corporate World .....
The average person spends 91,250 hours, or 11,406 days of their life working. That’s a lot of time spent doing something which is usually controlled by the whims of others and which is not always entirely pleasurable. I started my own working life at the tender age of 13, it was of course a part time job, washing dishes in a local hotel to earn a bit of spending money. It was tough work - along with the plates I had to scrub pots which were invariably covered with sticky burnt on goo which would take me hours to scrub clean. But it earned me some pocket money and gave me a taste of financial freedom, even if my “salary” was blown as soon as I got it on records and nail varnish. Since those days of menial but often fun jobs, I’ve worked pretty much non-stop, with the exception of a year off spent backpacking around Asia when I was thirty. That’s ten years of casual work in kitchens, restaurants, bars and clubs, and a further eighteen years of “proper” career type work. Phew.
In recent months, I’ve started to tire of the corporate life. Though I’ve moaned for years about having to get up in the morning and go into the office, this time I knew that something was different. I’ve always been a workaholic, totally obsessed by my work and invariably glued to my Blackberry or laptop, but suddenly I found myself genuinely bored of my corporate environment and all that goes with it. The intense, opinionated meetings were no longer stimulating but instead had become exhausting. The office itself had changed from a place which simultaneously motivated and energized me to a space which I found uninspiring and unimaginative. In short, I’d lost my corporate mojo and it was time to take the toughest decision of all – to give it all up and follow my heart.
And so I handed in my notice and began the process of disengaging myself from the workplace. As I cleared out the detritus of four years worth of corporate life from my cabin, I found myself torn between regret and joy and got to thinking about the whole concept of working for a living, at least in the 9-5 sense.
Every workplace is essentially a microcosm of the world - filled with stereotypes, all co-existing in a super intensified, essentially artificial environment. There are the popular types, the ones who organize the office parties, trips to the pub, push the HR department to organize offsites and other jollies, and who think themselves the life and soul of the party. Dig a little deeper and you’ll find that they have fairly miserable lives outside the workplace and that they compensate for their sad social lives by reinventing themselves within the office. Then there are the slackers, those who arrive late every morning, spend hours concocting elaborate excuses for their tardiness in between updating their Facebook status, and delight in the indoors smoking ban, which means they can go and take long smoke breaks. There are the brown nosers, who spend their careers climbing the greasy pole, obsessed with promotion, and the perks of the job, and who invariably trample on anyone else who gets in their way. Alongside these there are the sad secretaries who have been resentfully stuck in the same job for 25 years and who find ever inventive ways to heighten their own sense of self importance, the bright young kids fresh out of college who think they already know it all, and the sloggers who hold the place together, quietly and with little fuss, typically putting in eighteen hour days to earn a pitiful share of the rewards. And of course there are the bosses – the popular ones, the nasty ones, those who resent the success of others and those who encourage it.
Given that we spend half of our waking day (or more) at work, it’s hardly surprising that we develop a strange and often obsessive relationship with it. The office becomes a surrogate family for many, the place where ambitions can be realized and dreams fulfilled, where all are equal (depending on how robust and fair the appraisal system is) and most importantly where there is a non stop flow of coffee, tea, light, air conditioning and clean loos. No small benefits for many who live in extended, crowded families or who are struggling to make ends meet. There is an important psychological relationship with the workplace – it gives a sense of self worth and achievement, measured out in the completion of the ‘to do’ list and the praise and thanks of others. Many people define themselves by their work - in India in particular, work and “designation” are a measure of status. A regular office job gives you credibility in the eyes of friends and family and may even affect your marriage prospects (most candidates for arranged marriages send their resumes in advance!). Leaving the workplace, whether by choice or by design, can have a significant impact – the feelings of self worth and affirmation may be replaced by insecurity and fear for the future once the reassuringly regular salary stops and the visiting card can no longer be flashed.
Those who do make the choice to forge a life outside the security of a corporate workplace often look down upon those who choose a “regular” job. They accuse them of “selling out”, of failing to listen to their heart and living a subjugated existence at the whim and mercy of someone who happens to have a bigger car and a larger office. The reality, in my view is that both worlds are viable and respectable and the key is to know when to run from the corporate world, and when to hang on to it for dear life. The global recession has made many people cling on to jobs they hate, and though sad, that is an inevitable part of any economic downfall. On the other hand there are people, particularly in India with its reverse trend buoyant economy, who are leaving the rat race to start up their own businesses, or even to simply take a break. Both are worthy paths, depending on one’s state of mind, self confidence and of course financial stability. Personally, I can’t wait to embark on my own brand new challenge, although I have a funny feeling I am going to miss the office gossip and bitchy anecdotes.
Monday, August 22, 2011
I heart Mumbai
An old post which I've found and updated. I think I wrote the original version about 4 years ago and it still holds true.
Though living in India can be exasperating, infuriating, maddening and at times just plain impossible, it’s clear to me that I am totally in love with Mumbai. Though it drives me crazy, I can’t leave it ; though I fight with it on a daily basis, I just keep coming back for more of its rollercoaster highs and lows.
I remember the exact moment that Mumbai took my heart. I'd arrived into the city late the previous night ... driven slowly through streets choked with ragged people, rickshaws spewing out obnoxious fumes, and a general cacophony of sound, sight and smell overwhelming every sense. Usual India/Asia stuff, I'd thought, as I contemplated my future life here. I woke the next morning to a blinding bright blue sky, cloudless and luminous in its intensity. I was picked up from the flat I was staying in at Kemps corner, and driven to the office. As we entered the lanes of cars weaving haphazhardly across lanes, I lost myself in the contemplation of life in this new city. As we suddenly swung a left into Marine Drive, past Chowpatty Beach, I looked up and saw the curving expanse of Marine Drive ahead. In that very moment, inspired by the beauty of that arc stretching far into the distance, and the sun glinting off the immense stretch of ocean, I felt my heart beat faster. I fell in love with this view, with this energy, with this bright expanse of possibility and felt that future would be bright and exciting. Eight years later, I still feel the same way about this city, a place where I’ve grown professionally, met my husband, had my baby, bought an apartment and finally become a “Person of Indian Origin”.
I know that there are cynics who believe that I’m only emotional about Mumbai because I’m living a comfortable expat life here, able to afford the luxuries which insulate me from the dirt and the poverty, and that the nice apartment, the brunches, the manicures and the air-conditioned Innova protect me from the harsher realities of life for the average Mumbaikar. Well it’s true that I’m not exactly living on the streets. And yes I am lucky enough to live a relatively lavish life. But every city in the world is held together by the energy of the people who live there. And Bombay's inhabitants, though often poorer than we can even begin to imagine on the more affluent side of the fence, are the most positive, inspiring and intensely giving people I have ever had the privilege to meet and spend time with. And that lifeforce simply fills Bombay's atmosphere, infusing the city with an energy which overwhelms and invigorates. No other city I've ever spent time in, has had this kind of effect upon me. Forget Hong Kong, Singapore, London, LA, San Francisco, Jakarta, Manila, Bangkok, Rome, Paris. All intense and interesting in their own way, but always somehow leaving me a little cold, compared to the passion I feel for Mumbai.
Though life here can be intensely frustrating, difficult and often despairing, small events and incidences drive my love deeper every day. Walking out of my building after a quick chat with the ever smiling doorman, and catching a glimpse of the boiling ocean crashing on to rocks on my drive to the office. The cool relief which the monsoon brings after a long, hot sticky May and the way the tree lined roads turn from dusty brown to green and lush. Swimming in an empty pool at sunset, and listening to the faint sounds of the traffic with water-filled ears. Sitting in the parlour having my toenails painted fuschia pink by a sweet tempered man lost in concentration on getting the brush strokes of polish perfectly even. A deep tissue massage during which all the aches and pains of the day are kneaded away by expert hands. Sitting in the office, listening to the heated debates emanating from every corner, one moment in English, the next in Hindi and then an indecipherable mix. Sitting in the back of a crowded movie theatre, as the cellphones ring, the conversations get louder, the cheers and moans annotate every moment of the hero and heroine's burgeoning love affair. The list is simply endless. And at every moment, every time these small events take place, they add to the love I feel for this city.
Will I ever leave? I am asked this question on an almost daily basis. I don’t believe that anything happens in life by accident. I came here for a reason, I’ve found my soulmate and become a mother here, and now I’m about to set off on a new personal journey. I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to leave Mumbai, but I do I know that I’m not ready to leave it just yet.
Though living in India can be exasperating, infuriating, maddening and at times just plain impossible, it’s clear to me that I am totally in love with Mumbai. Though it drives me crazy, I can’t leave it ; though I fight with it on a daily basis, I just keep coming back for more of its rollercoaster highs and lows.
I remember the exact moment that Mumbai took my heart. I'd arrived into the city late the previous night ... driven slowly through streets choked with ragged people, rickshaws spewing out obnoxious fumes, and a general cacophony of sound, sight and smell overwhelming every sense. Usual India/Asia stuff, I'd thought, as I contemplated my future life here. I woke the next morning to a blinding bright blue sky, cloudless and luminous in its intensity. I was picked up from the flat I was staying in at Kemps corner, and driven to the office. As we entered the lanes of cars weaving haphazhardly across lanes, I lost myself in the contemplation of life in this new city. As we suddenly swung a left into Marine Drive, past Chowpatty Beach, I looked up and saw the curving expanse of Marine Drive ahead. In that very moment, inspired by the beauty of that arc stretching far into the distance, and the sun glinting off the immense stretch of ocean, I felt my heart beat faster. I fell in love with this view, with this energy, with this bright expanse of possibility and felt that future would be bright and exciting. Eight years later, I still feel the same way about this city, a place where I’ve grown professionally, met my husband, had my baby, bought an apartment and finally become a “Person of Indian Origin”.
I know that there are cynics who believe that I’m only emotional about Mumbai because I’m living a comfortable expat life here, able to afford the luxuries which insulate me from the dirt and the poverty, and that the nice apartment, the brunches, the manicures and the air-conditioned Innova protect me from the harsher realities of life for the average Mumbaikar. Well it’s true that I’m not exactly living on the streets. And yes I am lucky enough to live a relatively lavish life. But every city in the world is held together by the energy of the people who live there. And Bombay's inhabitants, though often poorer than we can even begin to imagine on the more affluent side of the fence, are the most positive, inspiring and intensely giving people I have ever had the privilege to meet and spend time with. And that lifeforce simply fills Bombay's atmosphere, infusing the city with an energy which overwhelms and invigorates. No other city I've ever spent time in, has had this kind of effect upon me. Forget Hong Kong, Singapore, London, LA, San Francisco, Jakarta, Manila, Bangkok, Rome, Paris. All intense and interesting in their own way, but always somehow leaving me a little cold, compared to the passion I feel for Mumbai.
Though life here can be intensely frustrating, difficult and often despairing, small events and incidences drive my love deeper every day. Walking out of my building after a quick chat with the ever smiling doorman, and catching a glimpse of the boiling ocean crashing on to rocks on my drive to the office. The cool relief which the monsoon brings after a long, hot sticky May and the way the tree lined roads turn from dusty brown to green and lush. Swimming in an empty pool at sunset, and listening to the faint sounds of the traffic with water-filled ears. Sitting in the parlour having my toenails painted fuschia pink by a sweet tempered man lost in concentration on getting the brush strokes of polish perfectly even. A deep tissue massage during which all the aches and pains of the day are kneaded away by expert hands. Sitting in the office, listening to the heated debates emanating from every corner, one moment in English, the next in Hindi and then an indecipherable mix. Sitting in the back of a crowded movie theatre, as the cellphones ring, the conversations get louder, the cheers and moans annotate every moment of the hero and heroine's burgeoning love affair. The list is simply endless. And at every moment, every time these small events take place, they add to the love I feel for this city.
Will I ever leave? I am asked this question on an almost daily basis. I don’t believe that anything happens in life by accident. I came here for a reason, I’ve found my soulmate and become a mother here, and now I’m about to set off on a new personal journey. I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to leave Mumbai, but I do I know that I’m not ready to leave it just yet.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Celebrating 10 years of working in Asia
Its (almost) my 10 year anniversary of working in Asia. Unbelievable to think that 10 years has flown since I first trod the corporate boards at JWT in Bangkok, followed by jobs at Lowe and UTV in Mumbai. I’ve been a Regional Head, Vice President, Senior Vice President, HR Director, Group HR Head and Channel Head. Not a bad collection of fancy titles for a girl from Devon, though frankly they are all pretty meaningless (as Channel Head I didn’t get to take the final calls on content, I was more the HR Legs than the Head, and I jostled for position with about thirty other Vice Presidents) but they of course count a lot in a country obsessed by ”designations” (job title = status = accolades from friends and family).
So let me take a quick glance back through the last 10 years and reflect on the highs and the lows.
JWT Bangkok was my baptism of fire in the Asian workplace, though relatively speaking, and in the context of what was to come later, it was pretty relaxed all round. I thought I “knew Asia” after a year of backpacking through India, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Laos, Cambodia, Singapore, Borneo and Indonesia. Well, I suppose I’d just about scratched the surface and had a sniff of the complexities of this region, but I hadn’t really equipped myself with the necessary ammunition to take on a job in which I had to persuade 12 very cynical local marketing teams to adopt strategies which had been devised by white people in fancy London offices. I can hardly blame them for being skeptical – these were ideas written for Thai or Indian housewives by posh blokes whose idea of getting close to the consumer was to head to the local curry house or to order a Thai takeaway. And it was my job to persuade one or the other to give in. It was my choice – either I could side with the whities and persuade the locals that years of international and cross cultural research had resulted in this extremely motivating and insightful idea which they should eagerly grab, or I could throw my lot in with the locals and try to convince the Europeans that they should respect local culture and knowledge and allow the natives to develop their own ideas. Either way I was doomed, and I varied my stance depending on whether I had the energy to fight with a bunch of upper class Brits in the stately surrounds of Mayfair, or whether I fancied taking on the great cultural divide and trying (and usually failing) to understand the nuances and needs of the Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese or Indian consumer. It was exhausting but a lot of fun, I spent my days on planes and in meeting rooms surrounded by the hustle and bustle of Asia, and my nights in bars in five star hotels drinking my expense account dry.
As if that wasn’t enough, I was seduced after 2 years by a similar job in Mumbai. Same client, same role, different Agency. I liked the sound of Mumbai, and had never really got to grips with Thailand, so I bid farewell to the tuk tuks and the bargirls, the whisky red bull buckets and the sleazy sex tourists (yuk!) and jumped on a plane to Mumbai. I’d never really spent any time in Mumbai before and imagined it to be a dirty, polluted fairly soulless city in which I’d probably spend a year or so before moving on to the next exotic location. I couldn’t have been more wrong, on all counts (except the polluted one). From the moment I landed in Mumbai, I loved it. Sure there were slums (clearly visible on landing), crazy traffic and ancient vehicles belting out thick clouds of black smoke. It felt as though I were risking life and limb on the taxi ride from the airport, I’m sure I paid about 4 times the regular taxi fare, and Mumbai smelled really bad, in parts, but still I loved it. It had an energy which was absolutely buzzing, you could literally feel the optimism and the opportunity in the air. The Mumbai job was similar to the Bangkok one in terms of the role, the salary and the clients, but there were also stark differences. For a start, I was the only foreigner in the office, and tasked with creating the first ever regional team, a team which would be required to travel extensively, at a time when travel for work was still considered a huge perk (that’s largely changed now). I was viewed with amusement by the locals, the strange white girl with a tattooed ankle who would disappear for days on end on foreign trips. I was given a company apartment, and was utterly horrified when I was shown around a filthy two bedroomed place with peeling paint on the walls bare electrical wires sprouting everywhere, and cooking stains on the tired looking gas burner. I was assured that it would be cleaned up, but it was a far cry from my luxurious condo in Bangkok. It was subsequently given a facelift and by the time I moved in it was fine, but it taught me a valuable lesson about India – looks can be very deceptive.
I set up my regional team, introduced them to the alien concept of expecting the client to treat you as an equal rather than a slave, and to various bars and restaurants around Asia, and we had a blast. I also gradually assimilated myself into the local agency and eventually became (and still am) good friends with a lot of the Indian employees. After 18 months of trying to make the Surf Excel “Dirt is Good” global strategy work for Asian markets (and superlative efforts to convince a similar bunch of white guys in London that in India, dirt is NOT always good), I was informed that my clients were all relocating to Bangkok and I’d have to go back there to continue the job. By this time I’d fallen completely in love with Bombay and the prospect of returning to Bangkok was impossible to contemplate. And so I was suddenly jobless, and more importantly, visa-less and facing the prospect of either having to find another job (and jobs for foreigners weren’t that plentiful) or leaving India.
After a couple of months spent drinking beer in Goa, I decided to pay a visit to the CEO of Lowe, the agency which I’d just left. Over a cup of tea, he completely took me by surprise by offering me the position of HR Director for the agency. I choked on my tea. I knew nothing about HR and had no training whatsoever in the discipline. He told me that he had a feeling that it would work out well. India is like that, it throws crazy experiences in your way, and you either duck (and miss out) or embrace them. And so overnight I became an HR Head, and despite an enormous salary slash (this was a “local” job without any of the expat perks) I discovered that I loved it. I spent the next 6 years as an HR Head, so I can’t have been altogether bad at it. I found that I had a natural affinity for people, enjoyed solving their problems and even being a shoulder to cry on, loved the fact that my team was brilliant and taught me heaps, and had a blast organizing parties and events.
In a similarly random fashion I also ended up as the channel head for one of India’s largest youth channels, whilst simultaneously holding down the HR Group role at UTV (I moved from Lowe to UTV in 2007). In retrospect perhaps not the wisest move, either one of those jobs was hugely challenging, and two was madness. But I loved the role, even though I knew nothing about TV apart from years of watching it, I was and still am passionate about content and had a background in marketing so it worked pretty well and I am proud of the work we did on the channel. However, I was literally glued to my blackberry 24/7, would eat, dream and sleep work and though intoxicating it was exhausting. Pregnancy eventually put an end to the two job thing, and I was asked to choose between them. I chose the (by now) more familiar territory of the HR role, and returned to a 10 hour day with free time at weekends which was relatively luxurious.
And now I’ve decided to give it all up for the time being. I’m tired to the point where I no longer have much enthusiasm for my work. I’m sick of getting up and going to the office every day, battling the traffic jams morning and evening and dodging office politics. I’m longing for a few months during which I can focus on simple pleasures – spending time with my one year old, cooking for my husband (yes really!), reconnecting with old friends and chilling with my family in the UK – with no Blackberry Breaks. And of course, writing. I am passionate about it, and intend to write write write. Watch this space.
So let me take a quick glance back through the last 10 years and reflect on the highs and the lows.
JWT Bangkok was my baptism of fire in the Asian workplace, though relatively speaking, and in the context of what was to come later, it was pretty relaxed all round. I thought I “knew Asia” after a year of backpacking through India, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Laos, Cambodia, Singapore, Borneo and Indonesia. Well, I suppose I’d just about scratched the surface and had a sniff of the complexities of this region, but I hadn’t really equipped myself with the necessary ammunition to take on a job in which I had to persuade 12 very cynical local marketing teams to adopt strategies which had been devised by white people in fancy London offices. I can hardly blame them for being skeptical – these were ideas written for Thai or Indian housewives by posh blokes whose idea of getting close to the consumer was to head to the local curry house or to order a Thai takeaway. And it was my job to persuade one or the other to give in. It was my choice – either I could side with the whities and persuade the locals that years of international and cross cultural research had resulted in this extremely motivating and insightful idea which they should eagerly grab, or I could throw my lot in with the locals and try to convince the Europeans that they should respect local culture and knowledge and allow the natives to develop their own ideas. Either way I was doomed, and I varied my stance depending on whether I had the energy to fight with a bunch of upper class Brits in the stately surrounds of Mayfair, or whether I fancied taking on the great cultural divide and trying (and usually failing) to understand the nuances and needs of the Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese or Indian consumer. It was exhausting but a lot of fun, I spent my days on planes and in meeting rooms surrounded by the hustle and bustle of Asia, and my nights in bars in five star hotels drinking my expense account dry.
As if that wasn’t enough, I was seduced after 2 years by a similar job in Mumbai. Same client, same role, different Agency. I liked the sound of Mumbai, and had never really got to grips with Thailand, so I bid farewell to the tuk tuks and the bargirls, the whisky red bull buckets and the sleazy sex tourists (yuk!) and jumped on a plane to Mumbai. I’d never really spent any time in Mumbai before and imagined it to be a dirty, polluted fairly soulless city in which I’d probably spend a year or so before moving on to the next exotic location. I couldn’t have been more wrong, on all counts (except the polluted one). From the moment I landed in Mumbai, I loved it. Sure there were slums (clearly visible on landing), crazy traffic and ancient vehicles belting out thick clouds of black smoke. It felt as though I were risking life and limb on the taxi ride from the airport, I’m sure I paid about 4 times the regular taxi fare, and Mumbai smelled really bad, in parts, but still I loved it. It had an energy which was absolutely buzzing, you could literally feel the optimism and the opportunity in the air. The Mumbai job was similar to the Bangkok one in terms of the role, the salary and the clients, but there were also stark differences. For a start, I was the only foreigner in the office, and tasked with creating the first ever regional team, a team which would be required to travel extensively, at a time when travel for work was still considered a huge perk (that’s largely changed now). I was viewed with amusement by the locals, the strange white girl with a tattooed ankle who would disappear for days on end on foreign trips. I was given a company apartment, and was utterly horrified when I was shown around a filthy two bedroomed place with peeling paint on the walls bare electrical wires sprouting everywhere, and cooking stains on the tired looking gas burner. I was assured that it would be cleaned up, but it was a far cry from my luxurious condo in Bangkok. It was subsequently given a facelift and by the time I moved in it was fine, but it taught me a valuable lesson about India – looks can be very deceptive.
I set up my regional team, introduced them to the alien concept of expecting the client to treat you as an equal rather than a slave, and to various bars and restaurants around Asia, and we had a blast. I also gradually assimilated myself into the local agency and eventually became (and still am) good friends with a lot of the Indian employees. After 18 months of trying to make the Surf Excel “Dirt is Good” global strategy work for Asian markets (and superlative efforts to convince a similar bunch of white guys in London that in India, dirt is NOT always good), I was informed that my clients were all relocating to Bangkok and I’d have to go back there to continue the job. By this time I’d fallen completely in love with Bombay and the prospect of returning to Bangkok was impossible to contemplate. And so I was suddenly jobless, and more importantly, visa-less and facing the prospect of either having to find another job (and jobs for foreigners weren’t that plentiful) or leaving India.
After a couple of months spent drinking beer in Goa, I decided to pay a visit to the CEO of Lowe, the agency which I’d just left. Over a cup of tea, he completely took me by surprise by offering me the position of HR Director for the agency. I choked on my tea. I knew nothing about HR and had no training whatsoever in the discipline. He told me that he had a feeling that it would work out well. India is like that, it throws crazy experiences in your way, and you either duck (and miss out) or embrace them. And so overnight I became an HR Head, and despite an enormous salary slash (this was a “local” job without any of the expat perks) I discovered that I loved it. I spent the next 6 years as an HR Head, so I can’t have been altogether bad at it. I found that I had a natural affinity for people, enjoyed solving their problems and even being a shoulder to cry on, loved the fact that my team was brilliant and taught me heaps, and had a blast organizing parties and events.
In a similarly random fashion I also ended up as the channel head for one of India’s largest youth channels, whilst simultaneously holding down the HR Group role at UTV (I moved from Lowe to UTV in 2007). In retrospect perhaps not the wisest move, either one of those jobs was hugely challenging, and two was madness. But I loved the role, even though I knew nothing about TV apart from years of watching it, I was and still am passionate about content and had a background in marketing so it worked pretty well and I am proud of the work we did on the channel. However, I was literally glued to my blackberry 24/7, would eat, dream and sleep work and though intoxicating it was exhausting. Pregnancy eventually put an end to the two job thing, and I was asked to choose between them. I chose the (by now) more familiar territory of the HR role, and returned to a 10 hour day with free time at weekends which was relatively luxurious.
And now I’ve decided to give it all up for the time being. I’m tired to the point where I no longer have much enthusiasm for my work. I’m sick of getting up and going to the office every day, battling the traffic jams morning and evening and dodging office politics. I’m longing for a few months during which I can focus on simple pleasures – spending time with my one year old, cooking for my husband (yes really!), reconnecting with old friends and chilling with my family in the UK – with no Blackberry Breaks. And of course, writing. I am passionate about it, and intend to write write write. Watch this space.
Re-entering the blogosphere
Its official. After a break of almost three years, during which I've settled into married life, wined, dined, partied, become a PIO (Person of Indian Origin), had a baby, bought a house and finally quit my job, its time to return to the Blogosphere. I've actually been an on off blogger for 6 years - I've gone through all the stages : been obsessed by blogging, overdone it, revealed the murkier details of my life to the entire world, realised the error of that, gone cold turkey, pulled the blog down, started a new one (this one) and again fizzled out thanks to a combination of too much work and generally feeling uninspired. Now I'm back, fully charged and with a lot of time on my hands having just given up my very stressful job as head of a department for a big media company. I'm exhausted frankly, my brain is refusing to co-operate when challenged with the minutae of corporate life, and I choose instead to turn to a life (however fleeting) of playing with my year old baby, cooking for my husband (yes really!!), travelling and rekindling connections with old friends (leaving comments on their Facebook statuses is no longer good enough) and of course writing. I'm in the middle of a book which I'm really excited by, and if it doesn't get published, then you'll see it on this very blog :). I'm going to try very hard to relax, wind down, and make the most of this sabbatical, the first after a very long ten years of working in Asia.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Day Eight – the Big Day
I managed to sleep, somehow. Not the longest or most restful of nights sleep but not bad given that I’d thought I would hardly sleep a wink. Prised one and then the other eye open and was surprised that the world looked … cloudy. I blinked hard …. Still cloudy. Murky even. I could hardly see the door from the bed. Couldn’t work out why I should have been afflicted by a sudden half blindness on such an important day and then a corresponding pain in my eyeballs helped me quickly to the dreadful realization that I had, for the first time in YEARS, gone to sleep with my contact lenses in. On the night that I am stone cold sober, focused and charged about my big day... I go and forget to pull out those wicked little discs which normally enable 20/20 vision but which on this occasion were glued to my eyeballs rendering me half blind and with huge puffy bags below each eye thanks to the overnight oxygen deprivation to the eye. Fabulous. I managed to prise the lenses out of my eyes (with a disconcerting sucky sound), hoped I hadn’t removed too much of my corneas, and looked at myself in the mirror. The horror! Two slits peeking out of two bright pink golf balls. Black bags under the golf balls in which I could have carried my entire wedding trousseau. Thank goodness Jo works for an airline as I ran to the fridge for ice and found some iced cold towels which I immediately pressed to my poor eyes. Slowly, finally the freak show started to subside and I saw my face returning to normal. I had that whole “bridegroom bolts at altar” thing going on for a while and it wasn’t pleasant.
With face more or less returned to normal Julie and I headed over to the posh parlour where we were due the full bridal/bridesmaid treatment (fancy hair and makeup), picking up Sarah and Justine on the way. They were both tense and tempers were overall a bit frayed. But after settling into our bridal suite and starting to get pampered, the tension visibly dissipated, until I pulled out my dress and found it to be creased. Actually the creases were fairly minimal and I should have hung the damn thing up earlier in the week (I had asked the salon to bring an iron but they had assumed I could send the dress out to the dhobi wallah … yeah right .. visions of little man scrubbing away at my satin and antique lace bridal gown …). But as the girls pointed out the reases were only really visible to my over-exacting eye. We also had to send someone to the bank for a last dash for cash to pay for the booze in the evening which was a bit of a saga but worked out in the end.
Finally we emerged, looking nothing short of fabulous. I had my hair pinned up in a gorgeous and complicated bun arrangement with curls and swirls and twirly bits hanging down. Another slight panic when we discovered that the beautiful tiara which had been painstakingly attached to the veil did not detach and could not fit over said tresses, but it looked ok perched on the top of my head instead. The girls all looked great with their hair washed and blow dried and flowing. I discovered that the itty bitty diamante stones covering my blingy shoes kept catching on the net inside the ‘hoop’ (cancan) which went under the dress. Try as I might I couldn’t help my feet getting stuck to the inside of the skirt, and it felt like another disaster in the making. Kick out, kick out was the helpful advice from the girls and on practicing this deft move my shoes behaved themselves. Dad had arrived very early at the parlour and was nervously sipping coffee, and fretting about getting me down the aisle. He was panicking about a coughing fit, falling, or generally getting over emotional. That made two of us. The car arrived (merc) and we headed for the church. Realising the futility of trying to stuff two bridesmaids, a maid of honour, a small child, the father of the bride and the bride in a full skirted dress into one car, Justine Donald and Sarah hopped into a cab.
We arrived at the church half an hour early (hoorah) and slipped into the back. Somehow the agonizing wait came to an end and it was 2pm, time to start. I was so excited and happy, and so emotional that I knew I’d start to blub if I even caught the eye of a single friend in the pews. The bridal party set off – tiny kids in the front, girls looking adorable in little handmade purple dresses and boys handsome and regal in tiny purple bow ties and black suits. Julie, Sarah and Justine followed, poor Julie walking solo and the others arm in arm with handsome (last minute) groomsmen. And then Dad and I started our slow walk, after a short pause to create maximum “entrance effect”. We reached the front, me without catching the eye of anyone, and I could sense my husband to be’s eyes boring into me and willing me to look at him., Hardly surprising really given this was the biggest moment in our lives to date but I just needed to compose myself and control my emotions, so I stared resolutely ahead and then leaned forward to catch his eye. He was looking so handsome, the suit which he’d had made looked absolutely fantastic, the cream silk cravat and waistcoat looked gorgeous especially against his dark skin, and he had his hair pulled back and a huge smile on his face. From the moment I caught his eye (and I know it sounds cheesy) everything was just fine. I visibly relaxed, and loved the entire ceremony which somehow seemed so much less complicated than during the rehearsal. The vows and the exchange of the rings part was simply amazing, and I will never forget those powerful words. We had considered writing our own vows but eventually stuck with the traditional version and I’m glad we did. The exchanging of the rings was amazing, though VIvek initially reached for his ring to place on my finger bless him so excited to get his hands finally on his ring. Then a couple of hymns, the lighting of the candle, a quick communion for the bride and groom only, and we were done. I am so happy that we eventually married in the cathedral, what a beautiful place. Simply stunning. I have to say that I had never ever pictured myself walking down a traditional churchy aisle in a white dress with a veil but that’s exactly what happened. And it felt fantastic.
So, we were married. Amazing. Big burst of pride in my heart and hanging onto my new husband for dear life through all the endless photos.
Then we all ran off to transform for part 2. Julie and I ran back to the parlour and cracked open the bottle of sula which had been intended for the morning but I couldn’t handle the thought of drinking that early. Hair washed clean of hairspray and backcomb, blow dried into swingy curls, new makeup applied (more Indian bridal less English virginal) and time to pull on the lehenga. One gorgeously shimmery number, bedecked from top to bottom with hand sewn sequins and stones, heavy as hell but a perfect fit. Husband called twice as I was squeezing into the thing – turns out we were late and he and his entire family were waiting on the street, him in horse driven carriage, with full band ready and waiting, and only the bride missing. Damn! Rushed out of there faster than you can say “don’t forget to pin the dupatta” and of course, forgot to pin the dupatta. Result, heavy scarf which slipped down over one eye all night, but apparently no-one noticed.
I felt like an Indian princess next to my Indian prince. I have to say, we both looked utterly fabulous, as did all the guys and gals from the UK in their sherwanis and sarees. We all looked like something out of a movie set. The actual reception part was a little dull as we had to stand on the stage and greet everyone individually but it was fine as we were doing it together and it was nice to meet everyone. We also managed to make speeches and have a toast, and I made an impromptu speech. My dad had been terribly nervous about speaking but in the end he did a fantastic job though I think I was more nervous than him as I knew how much it meant to him. So the evening passed in a blur of feeling princessy, greeting hundreds of wellwishers and receiving gifts, quaffing the odd glass of wine and finally collapsing at a table to sample some of the food.
There were a couple of minor disasters – it seems the wedding organizer had forgotten about the need to provide toilet facilities so guests had to use the revoltingly unhygienic bathrooms in the main house, and the promised aircon didn’t work so no-one went inside to hear the FANTASTIC band and so we never got to dance. But that aside, we had a brilliant night and a fabulous end to a truly magical day which I will remember for the rest of my life.
With face more or less returned to normal Julie and I headed over to the posh parlour where we were due the full bridal/bridesmaid treatment (fancy hair and makeup), picking up Sarah and Justine on the way. They were both tense and tempers were overall a bit frayed. But after settling into our bridal suite and starting to get pampered, the tension visibly dissipated, until I pulled out my dress and found it to be creased. Actually the creases were fairly minimal and I should have hung the damn thing up earlier in the week (I had asked the salon to bring an iron but they had assumed I could send the dress out to the dhobi wallah … yeah right .. visions of little man scrubbing away at my satin and antique lace bridal gown …). But as the girls pointed out the reases were only really visible to my over-exacting eye. We also had to send someone to the bank for a last dash for cash to pay for the booze in the evening which was a bit of a saga but worked out in the end.
Finally we emerged, looking nothing short of fabulous. I had my hair pinned up in a gorgeous and complicated bun arrangement with curls and swirls and twirly bits hanging down. Another slight panic when we discovered that the beautiful tiara which had been painstakingly attached to the veil did not detach and could not fit over said tresses, but it looked ok perched on the top of my head instead. The girls all looked great with their hair washed and blow dried and flowing. I discovered that the itty bitty diamante stones covering my blingy shoes kept catching on the net inside the ‘hoop’ (cancan) which went under the dress. Try as I might I couldn’t help my feet getting stuck to the inside of the skirt, and it felt like another disaster in the making. Kick out, kick out was the helpful advice from the girls and on practicing this deft move my shoes behaved themselves. Dad had arrived very early at the parlour and was nervously sipping coffee, and fretting about getting me down the aisle. He was panicking about a coughing fit, falling, or generally getting over emotional. That made two of us. The car arrived (merc) and we headed for the church. Realising the futility of trying to stuff two bridesmaids, a maid of honour, a small child, the father of the bride and the bride in a full skirted dress into one car, Justine Donald and Sarah hopped into a cab.
We arrived at the church half an hour early (hoorah) and slipped into the back. Somehow the agonizing wait came to an end and it was 2pm, time to start. I was so excited and happy, and so emotional that I knew I’d start to blub if I even caught the eye of a single friend in the pews. The bridal party set off – tiny kids in the front, girls looking adorable in little handmade purple dresses and boys handsome and regal in tiny purple bow ties and black suits. Julie, Sarah and Justine followed, poor Julie walking solo and the others arm in arm with handsome (last minute) groomsmen. And then Dad and I started our slow walk, after a short pause to create maximum “entrance effect”. We reached the front, me without catching the eye of anyone, and I could sense my husband to be’s eyes boring into me and willing me to look at him., Hardly surprising really given this was the biggest moment in our lives to date but I just needed to compose myself and control my emotions, so I stared resolutely ahead and then leaned forward to catch his eye. He was looking so handsome, the suit which he’d had made looked absolutely fantastic, the cream silk cravat and waistcoat looked gorgeous especially against his dark skin, and he had his hair pulled back and a huge smile on his face. From the moment I caught his eye (and I know it sounds cheesy) everything was just fine. I visibly relaxed, and loved the entire ceremony which somehow seemed so much less complicated than during the rehearsal. The vows and the exchange of the rings part was simply amazing, and I will never forget those powerful words. We had considered writing our own vows but eventually stuck with the traditional version and I’m glad we did. The exchanging of the rings was amazing, though VIvek initially reached for his ring to place on my finger bless him so excited to get his hands finally on his ring. Then a couple of hymns, the lighting of the candle, a quick communion for the bride and groom only, and we were done. I am so happy that we eventually married in the cathedral, what a beautiful place. Simply stunning. I have to say that I had never ever pictured myself walking down a traditional churchy aisle in a white dress with a veil but that’s exactly what happened. And it felt fantastic.
So, we were married. Amazing. Big burst of pride in my heart and hanging onto my new husband for dear life through all the endless photos.
Then we all ran off to transform for part 2. Julie and I ran back to the parlour and cracked open the bottle of sula which had been intended for the morning but I couldn’t handle the thought of drinking that early. Hair washed clean of hairspray and backcomb, blow dried into swingy curls, new makeup applied (more Indian bridal less English virginal) and time to pull on the lehenga. One gorgeously shimmery number, bedecked from top to bottom with hand sewn sequins and stones, heavy as hell but a perfect fit. Husband called twice as I was squeezing into the thing – turns out we were late and he and his entire family were waiting on the street, him in horse driven carriage, with full band ready and waiting, and only the bride missing. Damn! Rushed out of there faster than you can say “don’t forget to pin the dupatta” and of course, forgot to pin the dupatta. Result, heavy scarf which slipped down over one eye all night, but apparently no-one noticed.
I felt like an Indian princess next to my Indian prince. I have to say, we both looked utterly fabulous, as did all the guys and gals from the UK in their sherwanis and sarees. We all looked like something out of a movie set. The actual reception part was a little dull as we had to stand on the stage and greet everyone individually but it was fine as we were doing it together and it was nice to meet everyone. We also managed to make speeches and have a toast, and I made an impromptu speech. My dad had been terribly nervous about speaking but in the end he did a fantastic job though I think I was more nervous than him as I knew how much it meant to him. So the evening passed in a blur of feeling princessy, greeting hundreds of wellwishers and receiving gifts, quaffing the odd glass of wine and finally collapsing at a table to sample some of the food.
There were a couple of minor disasters – it seems the wedding organizer had forgotten about the need to provide toilet facilities so guests had to use the revoltingly unhygienic bathrooms in the main house, and the promised aircon didn’t work so no-one went inside to hear the FANTASTIC band and so we never got to dance. But that aside, we had a brilliant night and a fabulous end to a truly magical day which I will remember for the rest of my life.Day Seven - the filling in the sandwich
So the penultimate day of being single came and went rather unremarkably. It was like discovering that filling in the middle of your fresh store bought sandwich is not the juicy prawn and avocado mix with creamy mayo that you had anticipated, but rather the dried up remnants of a tin of spam with a lick of salad cream. We’d had a wonderful run of days and the anticipation of a fabulous finale to follow so little wonder that the ‘day before’ was generally a damp squib, especially given the size of the hangover which I woke with. Never mix tequila and Moet … haven’t I heard that before somewhere? Result – a sharp piercing pain above the left eye, a day long nausea and a general sense of apathy and mild hysteria. But we both managed to get through the day. Afternoon saw the wedding rehearsal which meant a fierce concentration throughout as my addled brain tried to remember the details of when to walk, kneel and speak. It seemed terribly complicated and the thought of forgetting some fairly significant part of my own wedding ceremony only added to the churn in my gut. I tried to record the feelings of the “day before” for the sake of posterity as and when they were happening but the time ran away in last minute organizing and I felt a little too sick to write. I remember though that the feeling was one of nervous excitement combined with a slight paranoia at being late to the church / having a last minute dress disaster/losing the bridesmaids etc. Not a moment’s concern however about losing the groom at the altar, I felt totally and utterly secure in the knowledge that my husband to be would be waiting there for me with a shine in his eye looking utterly fabulous in his tails and tie.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)