Listening to NPR - Indra Nooyi

I heard the interview of Indra Nooyi on NPR yesterday. It was a replay of a BBC interview recorded earlier. Engaging as it was, there were many fascinating things Nooyi said that do not quite ring true to my ears. She was insistent on how everybody across the world, India included, has always loved America & continues to do so. She alluded briefly to how people are able to separate people from policies & while American policies were not something she was going to discuss as the CEO of Pepsi, she had no doubt that this was indeed the case.

The incredible interest in the American Presidential elections internationally does not take away from the fact that the Muslim world, by & large, is alienated by America. The erstwhile soviet block I do not think was ever a great fan. The economies of Latin America have been known to suffer from disastrous policy recommendations from the World Bank & the IMF - very much under American scrutiny. So who is this everybody Nooyi is talking about?

I'd have to agree that it is the right thing to do to separate people from policies. My own travels to the US have taught me a lot against blatant generalizations around this. However, I do not think that such a distinction is made by people whose experience of America is not first hand. I frequently argue against such generalizations & the frequency of such talk points to the fact that a country is pretty much perceived by the news it makes - not by how its people may be like.

Nooyi's first 23 years in India have shaped her accent, & this has not changed. In many ways, she came across as very corporate, very confident, & wonderfully articulate. The story she related about her daughter having to take an appointment to meet her is amusing & sad at the same time.

She declined the challenge to tell Pepsi from Coke - citing reasons around how European Pepsi is different from American Pepsi. She further eulogized about how Pepsi was the chosen cola drink of great wine connoisseurs, & talked about tones of this & that in Pepsi. She did not say which of the many geographically-specific Pepsis she was talking about, though.

Her business acumen, I'm sure, is a byword. Her enthusiasm, energy & passion are incredible. She spoke very keenly on obesity & corporate & personal responsibilities for fighting obesity. I can only say that she did a less-than-perfect job of delinking America from Pepsi, & perhaps, even, tried a little too hard.

Strangers in a strange land - I: The train to Munich

Certainly, our budget for the Munich Holiday did not account for cloak room charges of 15 Euros per day for 5 days. So Antara, I & our eight pieces of luggage found ourselves with the task of somehow finding our way from the airport via a train ride to the Munich Hauptbahnhof & rolling from there to our hotel. It was not very difficult getting to the airport train station given the trolleys we had, but once we got there, there were no more machines to help us. It was down to strength. And strength had never been my strength. So it took what seemed like an eternity, & we must have gotten some help from the sympathetic people around - for I don't think we got all the bags into the train ourselves - to get everything on the train with me striking a fine balance between trying to stand & lending a helping leg & a helping hand to help two suitcases trying to stand.

So there we were, trying not look anybody in the eye. I finally figured out a way to arrange the suitcases & myself in a less dramatic posture. The group sitting around us consisted of two elderly gentlemen, one young woman, & two college-age boys. One of the elderlies who had been considering our state for sometime decided to break the silence & proceeded to make conversation. Now, my general experience in the US had been that not too many strangers asked very direct specific questions, they ask general questions & you're can fill in whatever details you wanted at your own judgment. This person obviously did not believe in that kind of a thing. He first wanted to know if we were students & proceeded to ask exactly what we did if we did not study, how long had been in the US, how long was our vacation in Munich - you know, stuff which produces simple, direct, truthful answers , not unlike a visa interview. Having established our credentials, he proceeded to share some of his own. He said that they were from MD, USA & are returning from a holiday in Kiev. They had a flight home in the evening & were going to Munich meanwhile.

At this point, he asked me the question I was avoiding to ask myself. He asked how in the world Antara & I proposed to take the luggage from the station to the hotel. I produced maps & directions pointing out that it was about 100 meters from the station & we might take a taxi or one person will do all the moving, say two pieces of luggage at a time, while the other stood at the station. He listened & gave me a the kind of look a headmaster gives a pupil from whom he expected better. He simply said that they'll walk with us with our luggage to our hotel. I tried to protest, but he was not really asking me if we could do what he said, he was telling me exactly what we would do.

The short walk was over soon. I carried the heaviest suitcase, he carried the second heaviest, the young boys carried 3 lighter cases between them & Antara just carried one. They quickly departed as soon as we had checked in, having shaken my hand firmly & not even exchanging names, leaving us to feel warm & grateful on a Sunny Monday Munich morning.

S!



*This is a series on people I've met during my travels. Most of these encounters were short, but left lasting memories.

People: SC

Portrait of SC
Photographed by souvik.

This, then, is the immutable SC. Lanky and caring enough to arouse suspicion, SC wields wizardry in the kitchen usually with a halka saa this or that. A sometime poet of might have beens, SC also paints in shades of grey, puts happiness to shame around his many children friends and reads fat books with gusto. In the four years that I have known him, he has failed only twice to recognize a movie within the first minute of viewership. He conducts quizzes and asks bloody impossible questions.

Now if you want to know what is wrong with him, you will have to mail me. It will be juicy, I promise.

The pill

SA, my roommate & close friend, has gone & twisted his neck. I asked him how did he manage it but he was not very sure. It could have been the game of badminton, but exactly what acrobatics on the court would potentially twist his neck like that, he did not know. It could have been the long hours he spends supine & otherwise on his kingsize bed, alone mind you, but then after twenty six years of proven expertise on the art of dormancy, that was unlikely too.

Whatever the reasons for this mysterious twist in the neck, he did not seem to like it a bit. He sat sadly watching the crocodiles on Animal Planet. He refused to play football. He started studying. All in all, he showed all signs of a man whom nature has dealt an unfair blow.

So he went and sought some professional advice. First, it was the barber. After giving him a really smart haircut, the barber, growing in confidence, held his head between his hands & said, "Nikaal doon kya?". Obviously, that would have been getting to the root of the problem; but for some reason, SA did not really seem very keen on the idea. I mean he is the kind of person who keeps his head under the most trying circumstance & this was but a trivial pain in the neck. So back he came with a just a massage, flashing his perfect set of thirty two, the massage having soothed him, for the time being.

However, the pain returned soon, the marsupials started jumping again on Animal planet, more refusal to kick the ball, & more serious contemplation on Business Communication. This time, he chose to see a doctor who, as most doctors do, gave him a pill.

This then, dear readers, was the moment of truth. With Neo-esque dilemma and a glassful of Bisleri, he looked all set to take the plunge; rather, plunge that pill down his throat. He proceeded to do so, shortly. With the pill just beyond his tonsils, just beyond recovery, it occurred to him that the pill, a muscle relaxing one, may not be able to figure out which muscle to relax!

A pain in the neck is bad enough. And roommates howling like a bunch of wild hyenas is not very comforting at eleven in the night. The last thing you want is a wrong muscle deciding to take it easy at the promising age of twenty six and a bit.

The wait was agonizing but SA was able to sleep through most of it. He woke up rather early, at nine in the morning. He bathed & pushed for office.

His limbs are fine, his eyeballs still doing the rounds, his jaws crunched away at the sandwich this morning.

I do not know if he will feel like playing football this evening, but I think I'll ask him.