The Genpact Team

The entire reason I traveled across the world was to meet with this wonderful group of people.  I thought you would like to see a few photos of the team to know who I spent 2 weeks of my life with. 

Where the team worked.

From Left to Right: Aniket, a Buyer who isn't actually on my team and I just noticed him in the picture, Fazal, Shiva, Archana, Sindhura, Anil (behind Sindhura who is on my right), Amarender is behind me, Nameetha is on my left, Sudheer is behind Nameetha, Dayanand, Chandra is behind Dayanand, Surya, Saidireddy, Kareem. Missing: Sumon, Harmeet & Rekha.

Archana, Sindhura, me & Nameetha

Aniket, Fazal, Dayanand, Archana, me, Nameetha, Chandra, Sudheer

Surya, Sindhura, me, Shiva, Saidireddy 

Amarender, Harmeet, Sindhura, me, Anil, Aniket, Shiva

The photo below also shows the hallway we were basically chased down once the guards realized we were taking photographs.  (I mean, as you have clearly seen we stole all the company secrets in these photos....) Anyhow, one guard showed up and asked us to leave.  When we took a few minutes, more guards showed up and once we began making our way down this hallway I turned back to look again and saw about 8 guards following us out of the common area to make sure we didn't take anymore photos.  I really didn't need to end my trip by having my camera confiscated.

Amarender & Saidireddy

Me & Nayyar; she is on the Buyer team but we work closely with her. 

Thanks for the adventure of a lifetime, India!

Shilparamam Shopping on Valentine’s Day

My final day in India I was able to go shopping at a wonderful outdoor handicraft village where I found some fabulous treasures.  I met a previous team member Ajay and we spent the afternoon wandering through stalls, finding beautiful handmade items and a stone rock garden.  Ajay did all the bargaining for me but I probably would have paid full price for some of the items I purchased there.  I found colorful bangles, hand-drawn artwork, table runners and so many other things. 

                                                                                                                                 

Once we made our way through the shopping we enjoyed a nice walk around the rest of the grounds where we happened upon this stone rock garden.

All the trees were numbered so they could count them each year and make sure none went missing.

These swings were really neat. 

The ponds all had statues of some sort.  Like geese and a fisherman.

Ganesh on a Lotus Flower.

Kids were riding in the tea-cup type ride while the dogs laid in the shade and watched.

Another pond with statues.

Although these statues were overlooking Ganesh, an India God.

Paddle boat rides, anyone?  

The men on the left were setting up for an event, most likely a wedding.  The elephant was unfortunately a statue so I was unable to get a turn riding it around the grounds.

We could have stayed for a Puppet Show, but I had to get to work.

Palm tree, the weather was tropical.

The Other Side of the Road

I figured you might want to see what the other side of the road looked like as well. 

The Westin was in the MindSpace compound with other businesses like Qualcomm and Accenture. 

The road across the pavement was THE most terrible road we drove the entire time.  The potholes on this 50 foot stretch of road barely hold a candle to the potholes around Cincinnati after the multiple snow storms during my trip to India.

I believe I've shared a similar picture before but I passed this structure everyday on my way to work.

More sunshine and sad trees.

I wasn't trying to get a picture of the bus, I was actually trying to get the building behind it that was covered in greenery.  It almost had some sort of outer structure that helped the plants grow around the building.  There was a wall similar to this in the airport too.  Wish I could have taken a picture there but I didn't want to alarm the guards.

I don't remember what I was trying to capture here but the tower on the left is pretty neat.  I can only imagine what it may have been used for.

There were some modern homes along the way.

Countless half built buildings.

I saw a few people carrying items on their head.  She was the only one I was fast enough to get a picture of.

Normally the "Street Dogs" stayed in small packs of 2 or 3.  This was the largest number of dogs I saw together.  They had more respect for the streets and the traffic patterns than most of the humans.  At night they would sleep in the middle of the road and thankfully were avoided by traffic, for the most part.

This is one of my favorite pictures and I wish I could have gotten a better angle.  2 men on a motorcycle carrying a bamboo ladder.  Amazing.

One day I saw men panting the blue fences but I liked this tractor too.

Advertisements were anywhere that had empty space on the side of the road, even boulders.

Tony's favorite.  I was later corrected that they call these Auto Rickshaws in India and Tuk Tuk's in Pakistan.  Geographically, they are close enough for me. 

An Indian Food Court.

Oddly enough I saw many women moving heavy objects in and out of buildings under construction.

These guys were crossing the road into the office parking lot.  The street vendors here were quite lively when I left the office at 2 in the morning with 10-20 people hanging out in front of the store partaking in whatever shenanigans occur at 2 in the morning...

Let’s drive to work….in India

We took the same route to and from the office each day, which was very comforting since I was in such a strange land.  One day I decided to take pictures along the way.  I tried on the way home too, but that didn’t really work.

Since motorcycles were such a large method of transportation, their parking spaces were in makeshift parking lots along the road.

Some of the landscaping on the way out of the hotel compound.

More landscaping.

This was the traffic we merged into everyday.  Mostly we would slow down until other people slowed down enough for others to merge into the already moving traffic.

There were some intersections but most roads were also able to be opened to allow for a U-Turn area just about anywhere.  The metal Police signs probably would have messed up your car if you'd missed them and continued to drive straight.

Again, we slowly moved forward until someone approaching was moving slowly enough for my driver, Mujeep to pull out in front of someone.

Men seemed to like having these street meetings on the regular.  Not sure what was so important to discuss on the side of the road but there were almost always there.

A lot of sunshine.

The water trucks also hung out on the side of the roads.  

Yes, this is where people live. 

Countless half built buildings.

And piles of trash in certain areas.

I loved these street vendors.  This one had a nice selection of fruit and other goodies.

More homes.

I even saw KinderKare along the way. 

The only time I saw cows my entire trip!!!  I almost didn't get a picture. 

There were also headstones along the road.

Here is the office! We would drive through the cones everyday and have to wait for a guard to bring me a book so I could sign into the building.  Then my driver would go under the building into the parking garage and drop me at the Genpact doors.  I would go through a metal detector and someone would unzip and look through my backpack.  Once I was past that guard I would wait for 1 of 16 elevators that was going to the correct floor to make it's way to the parking garage level.  Finally one would appear and I would head up to the 4th floor where my bag was checked again for bombs or whatever they were looking for.  I would move through the turnstyle and head right down the hallway passing banks of lockers and 2 more guards before I made my way into the office. The trip into the building normally took about 5 minutes. 

I even tried to take a picture on the way home.  I think this was the hospital...

In the next installment I'll show what the other side of the drive to work looked like.  :)