India Trip Report – 1989

MEMORANDUM

FROM: Robert Wallace DATE: October 6, 1989
TO: Jerry Peek

SUBJ: India Trip Report

CC: Larry W. Bob G. Tom M.

A Survivors Guide to India

Subtitle: “Don’t drink the water and don’t breath the air”

This is a trip report on the trip Jerry Peek and I took to India. The main purpose of the trip was to support Hinditron, conclude a sale, and sign a contract with Hinditron. This report covers the day to day activities with several embedded essays on topics of interest to anyone who might in a moment of weakness consider a trip to India.

Before I begin I would like to say that everyone at Hinditron, esp. Nilesh Mehta, were very helpful during our stay.

Sunday, Sept. 17 / Monday, Sept. 18th

The flight from San Francisco to Hong Kong took about 13.5 hours. The only way to enjoy such a flight is to take a coma inducing drug. This particular flight had a group of Taiwanese students that had been touring the U.S. as part of a church choir. I made the time go a little faster by performing magic for them. One young woman spoke broken English and we talked for awhile. She asked if she could write, so I gave her my card. She said she would write in Chinese so I will have to use Chen as a translator.

Total flight time with layovers was about 23.5 hours.

We finally arrived in Bombay at 1:00 AM Tuesday morning, totally zonked out. The drive from the airport to the hotel (the Taj Residency near Hinditron) took us through some very squalid sections of the city. The first thing you notice is the smell. Many of the areas smell like garbage dumps from both the sewage and garbage. Many people were sleeping on the side of the road.

Tuesday

Jerry and I left the hotel to sight-see. This is something I can’t recommend in retrospect. We walked two blocks to the Prince of Wales museum. On the way we had our first of many encounters with beggars. The weather in Bombay is very hot and humid. We returned to the hotel about 12:30. I decided I had better get a lighter weight shirt for the heat and bought a cotton shirt at a hotel shop for 300 rupeesc ($18).

We decided to check on our flight to Bangalore to make sure we had confirmed reservations. Here we had our first experience with the phone system in India. We couldn’t get a connection to the airline. I finally went downstairs to see if the front desk could help. They directed me to a travel agent in the hotel that finally managed to get through.

To our surprise, not only did we not have reservations, but the flight had been moved up from 6:50 to 4:30. This was something totally outside of our experience. We proceeded to do something akin to an Indian fire drill, trying to let Hinditron know we were dashing to the airport. Virginia Fernadaz (Nilesh’s secretary) was on her way to the hotel so we waited for her to arrive, conferred and decided that the best thing to do was to take a cab to the airport.

The cab was driven by a turbaned Sikh who assured us he would do everything he could to get us to the airport. (See essay on driving in India). Bumper cars is far less exciting than that ride. Jerry and I spent most of the ride white knuckled and with our eyes closed. We did get to the airport in time and dashed through the ticket line and security, to discover that the plane that had been moved up was now delayed. The flight finally left at about 5:30. Indian Air is the regional carrier. Both Jerry and I skipped the food.

In Bangalore we were met by Nilesh and took a hired car to the hotel. It turned out that our hotel reservations were only through Saturday night, instead of Sunday, and the hotel told us that they were full. We will turn that problem over to Hinditron to straighten out. We skipped the Autodesk/Hinditron dinner, pleading jet lag. We ate dinner at the hotel (Fried chicken and chips for Jerry, curried chicken for me.) Turned in about 9:30.

Wednesday

4:30 AM – Jet lag strikes… Was up at 12, 2 and 4. Some general comments and reflections..

The city smells. Coming in from the airport we drove through what we would call shanty towns. They look as if they are built on garbage dumps. The smell of garbage and sewage mix with the odor of diesel exhaust. Shanties are made out of everything. Corrugated metal, cardboard, wood, tarps, etc. These areas have no sanitation at all. People urinate and defecate at the side of the road. People would be sleeping along side the road. Even by the hotel.

I commented to Jerry there must be nice parts of the city, but we never saw them. I fear that we were in the nice part. At least if Hinditron can’t straighten out the hotel problem there is still some spaces left on the street to sleep…

Transportation and communication is interesting here. Nilesh was 1.5 hours late in picking us up in the morning. Something about a mix-up on the hired car. Seems that you can’t rent a car here like you do elsewhere in the world. Here what you do is hire a car and driver.

Nilesh finally got a car and came and picked us up. We drove to the Taj Residency hotel where Hinditron had a booth at the CSI show. The show was spread over five hotels because India doesn’t have convention centers like the U.S.

We spent some time looking around the show. We also sat down with Nilesh and went over the itinerary for the rest of our visit. The show itself was not very interesting for us. The major portion of the show was transaction processing oriented. A lot of P.C. products and some workstations (Sun, Vax, etc.) Nothing remotely scientific, real-time, or signal processing. Both Jerry and I were feeling the jet lag so we headed back to the hotel.

I lay down for a while and then took a shower. We had understood that Nilesh would pick us up at 5:00 so I met Jerry down in the lobby at 4:45. 1.5 hours latter Nilesh arrived pleading that he had thought we were going to meet at another hotel. (Not all of the time was wasted… I entertained the receptionists at the front counter with magic and decided that I would take about 4 of them home with me.)

Nilesh, Jerry and I, and two other Hinditron managers went out to dinner. Unfortunately the service was terrible and the food so-so. Nilesh and one of the other Indians sent their food back because it was too hot and spicy even for them. Probably the most interesting part of the dinner conversation was when one of the Hinditron managers said with pride that India exports food. I thought this ironic in view of the extreme poverty and hunger we had witnessed.

Thursday

Had breakfast with Nilesh Mehta and Mr. Gandi of Hinditron. Conversation seemed a little awkward but o.k. After breakfast we went to Hinditrons office. (I was faintly reminded of Auther Dent’s reaction to the hold of the Vogon space ship in the Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy… “it’s a bit squalid, isn’t it?”)

Jerry called Australia. We then discussed business issues with Nilesh. The main issue was what was going on with CMC and the rumor that CMC was going to get the order for an Aptec (via London) rather than Hinditron. Nilesh assured us that Hinditron was in control and knew what CMC was doing. He explained how CMC was the only authorized sparing house in India and that even if they got the order the business would go to Hinditron.

At 12:00 we drove to the India Space Center offices and made a courtesy call on the customer. We set up a technical presentation for tomorrow. We got back to the hotel around 1:30. Jerry wasn’t feeling too well. We went for a walk and then sat in the bar doing magic. One of the receptionists (named Akila) came and talked for awhile. I ended up trying to teach her one of my magic tricks. Went to bed around 9:00. Woke at 1:00 and at 4:00.

Friday

Met Jerry for breakfast. I had Masala Dosa. Dosa is a large bread like/pancake like bread about 18 inches long by 10 inches wide rolled loosely. The masala dosa is dosa filled with spiced potatoes and other unidentifiable objects. Jerry had an omelet. We met Nilesh and a Dec representative (from Hinditron) in the lobby.

We then drove to the Westend hotel to meet with Mr. Sonawala. He is a very friendly and nice gentleman. He is both the head of Hinditron and of the Computer Society of India. While there we briefed a potential customer who had been meeting with Mr. Sonawala. Mr. Sonawala also called up a colleague and arranged a Saturday meeting with a group of radar engineers.

We finished the meeting at around 10:30. Drove back to the Taj hotel and looked around the show some more. Both of the technical presentations we had been told to expect had been canceled. So we joined the CSI people for a stand-up buffet at the Westend hotel and chatted with various dignitaries in the computer community.

After lunch we attended a three hour panel discussion on parallel computing. It was just like all of the panels on parallel computing that I have attended in the last 7 years.

First, everyone says how great parallel computing is and that it is the answer to all of the problems of the future. Then the say that the only thing they have to overcome is the software. Then they tell you how great their own system is. They omit details such as the lack of any real successful commercial system. It is also interesting to note that no matter what the question is, each panel member will never answer it, but will always somehow get a plug in for their product. The Intel marketing manager on the panel was especially good at that. Later we also attended the CSI dinner which turned out to be a mistake.

The dinner was at the pool side of one of the hotels. The problem with the dinner was that the area was not large enough for the number of people. The ground was muddy, lines for food were long, and after getting your food it was difficult to find a dry place to stand and eat that wasn’t crowded. On top of that, they had a large projection screen and were playing loud music videos.

We decided to leave early, after we had fulfilled our obligations and had met with various people, but we couldn’t find the exit. The way we had come in was closed off. The exit turned out to be a small tunnel off on one side, that you had to go through. The whole setup was somewhat bizarre and both Jerry and I were happy to leave the crowds behind. We took Nilesh back to the hotel and sat for awhile in the bar drinking soft drinks and talking. Our hotel was relatively quiet for a change since all of the attendees were at the dinner.

Saturday

Nilesh picked us up at 9:00 AM and we drove out to the Defense Establishment for the presentation arranged by Mr. Sonawala. Entering a defense site there is similar to here as far as signing in. We had to show our passports, etc. When we got to the presentation room we were pleasantly surprised by the number of people there. The director was there with five or six others who really understood signal and radar processing (I wish I had Ken with me). They listened and asked good questions till noon, when we finished up. It was a very good meeting.

Nilesh needs to followup by getting them as much technical information as possible. I promised to send the papers I have written for the VSP and get Ron Fargason’s benchmarks finished as sent over as soon as possible.

We got back to the hotel to change into more comfortable attire (jeans are not a good idea for India). Nilesh went back to his guest house to change and returned 30 minutes later. Hinditron keeps guest houses in each city for its employees. We did not have an opportunity to see what they were like.

We then took a car tour of the city looking at the parliament building, a park and museum. I took a risk and ate a Guava fruit, which is a fruit that you can eat whole, skin and all (no side effects). Everywhere we went we had beggars come up and beg for money. A memorable experience was having a beggar reach through the open rear window of a car we were in. His arm had sores oozing pus. While in the park Nilesh talked us into eating what they eat instead of popcorn. It was a spicy puffed rice. On the way out of the park a troop of monkeys came down out of the trees and were playing around.

From the park we drove to the “Glass House”, a typically English style building of glass walls that was dedicated by Prince Albert. Once again the beggars followed us down the Street. It is difficult to ignore them but there is little else you can do. There is just too many of them. It is ironic that several Indians had boasted that India was exporting food.

After the glass house Nilesh needed to go into the office for a short time. We went with him and sat for a while. Afterwards we drove to the center of town where the shops are. Bangalore is known for silk so I shopped for some scarfs. Again, once we got out of the car the beggars came up. One girl of about 10 would hold out her hand then pat her stomach. She was carrying a sign saying that she had lost her tongue.

We first stopped in a government store that carried a wide range of arts and crafts. There were sandalwood items, inlaid rosewood furniture, silks, brass-work, etc. Down the street was a silk store that was where I bought some scarfs. Three very nice, large silk scarfs came out to $42. While paying I started do perform some magic for the clerks. In return for the entertainment they didn’t charge us the tax. It wasn’t much of a discount but was a nice gesture. I found all of the Indians fascinated with magic. The biggest problem I had with a lot of them was that they actually believe in magic.

While on the street we stopped at a Paan stand and Nilesh bought us some. Paan is a betel leaf smeared with who knows what (one ingredient was tobacco) and then folded into a packet. You pop it all into your mouth and eat it. It is suppose to aid in digestion and freshen the breath. Jerry surprised me by having one also. I guess by that time he figured that nothing could make his stomach any worse than it was.

Nilesh had to meet a client from Calcomp that evening so Jerry and I ate in the main restaurant in the hotel for the first time. I had an Indian Lamb disk, Jerry had beef wellington. I keep telling Jerry that his stomach problems are probably caused by NOT eating the Indian food, but he keeps eating continental. Considering the poverty we have seen we were amazed by the large portions of food serve us. Six or seven people could have been fed.

Sunday

Sunday was our day for sightseeing.

Nilesh picked us up at 6:00 Am for the drive to Mysore, some 150 Kilometers to the southwest. (We used the same car and driver all week.) We took off and traffic was very light at that time of day. The roads in India are very rough and the ride, especially in the back seat wasn’t very comfortable. The driver put on a tape, but the speakers were right by our heads in the back seat. We finally asked him to turn it down.

While the road was typically very rough (worse than some of our bad back country farm roads) the scenery was beautiful. The early morning light would have been great for photography but I felt awkward asking to stop to take photos. If we had stopped everywhere I wanted, we would have never made it to Mysore. The countryside alternated between small towns which really seemed nothing more than a group of shacks and small buildings along the road, to open stretches of rice paddies and cane fields. After about a two hour drive we reached our first stop.

The first stop was at the tomb of the Tiger of Mysore. He was a king who had fought the British three different times. The third time he had lost due to treachery from within. He was killed by a British captain during a battle in the city. The tomb was an open building with three tombs inside. Tombs for women were pyramid shaped with flat tops, men’s tombs had pointed tops.

At the tomb we picked up the services of a tour guide who filled us in on the history of the battles. He also had recommendations on what sights to skip seeing and which ones to see. He joined us in our car for a short ride to the palace used by the Tiger of Mysore and gave us that tour as well. Palaces there were typically made out of stone and wood. This one was mostly wood. The wood was painted with colorful scenes, but was pretty well faded and chipped. The style of the building was very open with many balconies.

We drove through many areas of shanty towns. It is difficult to describe these and to imagine how people can live in them. The most vivid image I have is of several small children, naked, playing in the garbage. Some were squatting down to go to the bathroom in the trash.

We discovered that you can easily identify tourist attractions by the people hawking postcards at each one. They were a lesson in salesmanship, persistently thrusting packets of postcards in your face, never taking no for an answer. We thought we could outsmart them by Jerry buying a pack. Then whenever we saw them come he would wave it and say we already had some. (It was interesting to note that most of the postcards we saw were the same set, no matter where we were). The tactic met with limited success, they still approached but seemed to give up a little sooner.

Some of the other attractions we saw during the day were:

• A European style cathedral build around 1931. (It was interesting that most of the buildings we saw really weren’t all that old)

• A Hindu temple on a mountain and a statue of a bull that was reputed to be getting larger each year…

• A Queens palace that had been converted into a hotel. We stopped for coffee and tea.

• A typical South Indian hotel for a typical South Indian lunch (Dosa and rice).

• Silk stores in Mysore (not as nice as the silk in Bangalore)

• The Kings Palace (Magnificent…) Well preserved with exhibits of gold and silver thrones. One room was especially beautiful, with open two story ceiling, black marble pillars, and patterned tiled floors. Nilesh told us that as short as 50 years ago the palace had been in use. Many of the paintings on the walls (actually murals) were dated in the 1930s. Everywhere were carved and inlaid rosewood doors.

• The Brindavan gardens of Mysore and the musical fountains
  I won’t go into more details at this time. The biggest disappointment was the gardens and musical fountain. It deserves a trip report of its own… Ask Jerry for an account of this attraction.

We stayed at the “singing fountains” after dark so we could get the full effect of the lighting. Las Vegas has nothing to worry about. We got back to the hotel in Bangalore around midnight. The three hour ride back from Mysore was a nightmare. Jerry was in the front seat, I was in the back with Nilesh. The driver was playing Indian music through the speakers. I didn’t say anything about the volume because I figured the music was keeping the driver awake. Jerry and I decided the best thing to do was to close our eyes and pretend to be asleep, hoping the when the inevitable head on collision with an on-coming truck occurred, death would be quick and merciful. Somehow the inevitable didn’t occur and we made it back, exhausted and filthy.

Monday

We slept in till around 7:00. Had my standard breakfast of dosa. Jerry came down and joined me. After packing we went downstairs to wait for Nilesh. Akila was working and we chatted. She was sorry to see us leave. (We exchanged addresses). Our flight was delayed until 1:30, so we tried to do some last minute shopping. We went to the airport and discovered that the flight was further delayed till 4:30.

Tuesday

We tried to visit the Hyderabad customer at NRSA. The man we wanted to see was in Bangalore on some emergency. All of the engineers who might have been nice to see were tied up in a C programming class.

The boss of the man we wanted to see finally saw us for about 20 minutes, but obviously didn’t know of our visit. One engineer who works with the current IOC at the site sat in. They wanted us to come back in the afternoon to meet with the key man when he returned from Bangalore, but if we did that it would throw the rest of our schedule out the window.

We decided to try to meet the man at the airport when his flight arrived. We could talk at the airport, and if necessary then decide whether or not to cancel the next days meeting. Otherwise we would be at the airport ready to catch our flight. So we went to the airport and of course, the gentleman wasn’t on the flight. So we caught our flight (delayed) back to Bombay to spend the night.

Wednesday

Woke up at 3:30 to catch a 5:45 flight to Ahmedabad. For the first time the flight was on time. We arrived in Ahmedabad and went to the customer (SAC). The first thing you notice about Ahmedabad is the dryness. It is very hot, but the humidity is much lower than Bombay. We got to the customer site around 9:30 and went through the standard security hoopla. We then played musical buildings for about 30 minutes before we found a conference room to use.

It turned out to be a very good meeting, with 13 people from SAC attending. SAC really beat us up on reliability and maintenance. They had discovered an intermittent memory error. Then the new memory board that had just arrived failed. They asked for access to schematics or to have Hinditron able to repair boards in India. Jerry promised to have a formal position on maintenance for them by the end of Oct. (Most likely will be some sparing agreement with CMC). We finished up with a tour of their facility including a clean room where they work on the optics for the spacecraft. An interesting custom in India is removing your shoes when entering temples and computer rooms.

After finishing the call we went back to our hotel. This was the best hotel in the city and one of the worst hotels I have every stayed in (and I have stayed in some bad hotels).

Nilesh had some office work to do, so we arranged for him to pick us up later for dinner. Jerry went to his room to rest, I stood by the window of my room and took photos of people and animals at the intersection below.

When Nilesh picked us up, we drove to the place Gandi had lived, and where he started his famous march. It was very interesting to see how he had lived there in spartan quarters. I suspect that he is turning over in his grave whenever he looks at how his India has turned out. We had time to kill before dinner and did some more silk store shopping. I bought some silk ties at $6.00 apiece. Jerry was suffering from a bad headache. We had dinner at a nice revolving restaurant that served surprisingly good food.

It was interesting that no matter what we were doing, I always seemed to get the better of it than Jerry. My hotel rooms were nicer, I ended up with airplane seats with more legroom, my food was better, etc. I assume that since we were in India this was just a case of my Karma being better than his…

Thursday

As we left Ahmedabad we had our baggage hand searched for the first time. Of course I got through with all of my camera gear with no problems, while Jerry got hassled. He had to give them the batteries out of his small flashlight and his spare batteries. Jerry was very pissed off by the time he got through. The irony was that my camera equipment had a lot more batteries than his flashlight.

We landed in Bombay and checked into the hotel at the airport. We then drove to the Hinditron office and met with Mr. Mehta (Nilesh’s boss). From the windows of Hinditrons offices were nice views of several impressive buildings. I mentioned that I would like to get a picture of them, but none of the windows opened up far enough to take a shot. Jimmy (one of the employees) offered to take me onto the terrace.

To my surprise the terrace was really the roof of the building, six floors above ground. I’m standing right on the edge of the building on a narrow ledge taking photos.

We continued to meet with Nilesh and talk about the agreement between Hinditron and Aptec, and how CMC fits in. Mr. Oak from CMC had called Jerry at the hotel that morning and had requested that we see him alone, without Hinditron. Nilesh told us that he had talked with Oak and Oak had asked him to come. He also told us that Oak had told him that Jerry had called him, not the other way around.

We drove over to CMC’s offices that afternoon around 3:00. Oak met us and showed us a video tape on CMC. It was obvious that he wasn’t going to say much with Nilesh there. He offered to show us around the building in order to get us alone, and then talked with Jerry about the situation with England. It was very difficult to talk with Mr. Oak in that he didn’t seem to listen at all.

Whenever Jerry or I started to say something, he would interrupt and start talking. He did tell us that CMC was the only company in India that could stock spares and that it was owned by the government. CMC could not accept commission on orders, but could only charge for maintenance. He also told us that CMC did have the order from London, something we latter determined not to be completely true. Anyway, we finally terminated the meeting and left for the hotel around 6:30. It was clear to Jerry and I that Mr. Oak was not a trustworthy individual, but that there was the basis for a relationship between CMC, Hinditron and Aptec. Nilesh and Mr. Sonawala will work with CMC to establish CMC as the spares/maintenance house. My personal recommendation is that we consider allowing Hinditron to do board level repair (NOT CMC) and use CMC as a board swap service.

Summary

Travel is difficult and time consuming. Flights rarely left on time causing a lot of time to be wasted waiting in airports.

The quality of the customers we visited was good. Hinditron is calling on the right type of customers. It is difficult to say, however, what the real potential for business in India is.

Service is a main concern/problem with India.

CMC (Mr. Oak) can probably help with the service problem, but based on our first meeting with Mr. Oak seem to be untrustworthy. Mr. Oak made the statement several times that they worked for the customer first, which is not necessarily bad. But the way he said it made me uneasy. I could see him giving customers schematics etc if they had them. We also caught him in several lies. The problem is that CMC is the only game in town for sparing.

Summary of calls and meetings

CSI trade show.

The show was not of much interest to us, or applicable to Aptec’s market. It did demonstrate two things to us however. The computer industry is growing in India. This show was very well attended. And Hinditron can participate in large shows like this. They had a very nice booth and display, including the use of video. The show was also a disappointment to Jerry and I in that we did not meet the number of people that we had hoped to. This was in part due to the lack of time people had with all of the show activities going on.

Hinditron

Mr. Gandi of Hinditron, more a social call.

Mr. Sonawala of Hinditron. Excellent informal meeting during the show… He introduced us to Dr. Datta, Chief, Indian Meteorological Department. He also arranged a sales call at LRDE for Saturday.

Electronics and Radar Development Establishment (LRDE)

Very good call. About seven attendees. Much interest in the VSP-1. This particular group of engineers were more focused on signal processing at the chip level that at the systems level, however they were interested in the IOC and were asking very good questions. Nilesh will follow up with some more technical data for them. Hopefully they will share the data with their fellow engineers and Nilesh will be invited back.

National Remote Sensing Establishment (NRSE)

Key person wasn’t there. Talked with one engineer who felt our equipment was too expensive, and who made the erroneous error of trying to compare an I/O box withgeneral purpose computers. He also raised the question about getting schematics so either NRSA or Hinditron could repair boards in India.

Space Appilications Center (SAC) – excellent call

Talked about their next generation requirements for data collection. They need to be able to gather data at 20 MB/sec and hold about 32 MBs of data. They were under the misconception that the IOC-24 was limited to 12 MB/sec read and 12 MB/sec writes. We cleared that up and explained how they could do what the wanted to do today with an IOC-24 and presented the IOC-200 as an option for expanding the performance. Jerry took an action item to explore the potential problems with exporting the IOC-200 to India.

Oil and Natural Gas Commission (ONGC)

Mr. Rey – Director (First call)

This particular group was oriented to data processing and was unwilling to do anything that would involve any changes to existing software. They are currently using machines like IBM3038 with vector processors, Elxis and different types of mini computers. They do not use HDDRs, but instead use 6250 bpi tapes. They were not a good fit for the IOC, but they did have a problem with the volume of tapes they have to deal with, and were interested in things like optical disks. We told them about the VLDS but they were skeptical about using non-standard media.