009 My Foot Almost Fell Off

We had a relatively lazy morning today, and by lazy I mean we didn’t have to wake up before the sun rose, which was pretty exciting. The girls and I enjoyed a leisurely breakfast at our apartment while watching some TV, and that was both fun and educational...We watched the Indian version of Channel [V] and were surprised to see how similar it was its American counterpart. There was a brief clip about the latest Bollywood gossip – including sex scandals! And after that, there were showings of the Hindi version of the shows Cheaters and Wife Swap. Hahaha. Who would’ve thought? I understand that there is a pursuit of Western ideals and values in the country, but I didn’t think that it would be at the cost of their conservative values. This may just be indicative of a shift in ideals as the country moves from one generation to another. I hope that India’s culture doesn’t become as overtly sexualized as America’s has though, I appreciate that traditional values still hold water in a country with one of the youngest populations in the world.

Investigated our apartment complex and it was basically awesome. Reminded me a lot of the condo where my family lived when we stayed in Kuala Lumpur!

Condos are awesome.

Pool wasn't in use while we were there. :(

Anyway, after lounging around, the group gathered on the bus and headed for the WIPRO campus. WIPRO is the second largest outsourcing company in the world. The reception we received when we arrived was phenomenal. We each received a bouquet of flowers and a personalized name tag, and of course, were treated to a buffet lunch right outside the conference room. Once inside the room, we were treated to a full day of lectures from some of the company’s top executives as well as a steady stream of food and drinks and other souvenirs.

Branding like you wouldn't believe.

Trying to be grown ups at the conference table...

...LOL YEAH RIGHT. Playing football instead.

Each executive presented insightful and interesting information about the international arena in which their company now competes. The group learned quickly that America and every other developed Western nation is no longer alone in the pursuit for excellence, and that to me, was a humbling thought. India is such a young country in that it gained independence not so long ago, and so its fight to be a viable competitor in the global arena is that much more pronounced. After the lectures were finished, we had the opportunity to visit the WIPRO campus on a guided tour, no less!

WIPRO campus.

The facilities were top-class and the training modules they had available were similar to or even better than the ones that I have seen back home at Tyson and at Walmart, which was remarkable. An aspect of the company that I was truly impressed by was its desire to see self-improvement in its employees. The company offered countless classes and training modules so that their employees could continue to grow personally and contribute to their company. Such forward thinking! In any case, the hospitality that was shown to us was incredible. WIPRO, like I said, is the second largest outsourcing company in the WORLD, and the fact that they devoted so much time and effort to a bunch of college students was a wonderful experience.

The WIPRO visit took much longer than we originally had planned, and so the group headed straight to the apartment complex once it was over. After that, we walked to the Pizza Hut that was nearby to try some local versions of our favorite meal…but we totally cheated and got cheese and pepperoni pizzas instead.

GLORIOUS FOOOOOOOOOOOD!

Dining at Pizza Hut in India is somewhat different than eating in a Pizza Hut back in the States. The Indian Pizza Hut experience is a little more formal whereas dining at a Pizza Hut in America is a lot more casual. The food, thankfully, was pretty similar to what we were used to, so we had an awesome and fun dinner. We still haven’t quite gotten used to the communal dining concept, so splitting money has not always been an easy feat, especially when the Indians aren’t fond of providing small change either! Eep! We finally figured the small change out though, so it worked out well.

After dinner, a few of us split up to try and get our phones recharged, and to get some ointment or medicine for my foot, which after being bitten by the ants/baby spiders at Kabini had swelled pretty much to twice its size. No fun.

OH MAH GAHHH.

We managed to find someone who could charge our phone, but couldn’t get any medicine for my foot. I’ve told Dr. Anand and Dr. Ellstrand about it though, so hopefully there will be medicine for me tomorrow and I my foot won’t fall off. One thing that we noticed at the smaller stores were that the items were sold in smaller packaging and like in the bigger stores, products were stuffed anywhere they could fit, with a little more order to them. We thought that the smaller packaging might have been employed to make the products more affordable to the customers.

One of the small shops we found.

In any case, we headed back after charging our phones and have been hanging out ever since.