Accomplishing what exactly?

I have made it my personal mission to have the security guard in our building say good morning by the time we go back to the US. Every morning, we come down with the elevator and I say “Good morning” just to be greeted with a look, not even a stare, just a look.

We have in our building alone nearly 10 guards and I have chuckled a little at the many security guards around the city. When I say security guards, I mean the men that sit or stand by buildings and watch life go by. I am not so sure they would be a real asset in case of a real emergency, but they are there, just watching. More important to my field, they are all wearing shirts with some form of “official” patch sewn on the sleeve and that seems nearly more important than the work itself.

In a society that has so many people, I sometimes get the impression that people feel they need to prove that they have a good reason to use the scarce resources they are all fighting for, they need to prove they have the right to exist. Each day I witness them fight for space, some for food, some for shelter, most for the right to be someone and appearance becomes everything. Appearance, such as an “official” patch, is the visual communication that you are someone. Or more importantly, you are not a nothing, something I think most here dread. Trust me, in India, you do not want to be a nothing.

It is maybe because so many people fight for the most basic rights and basic status each day that Indians value friendship and relationships so much. As I have been using the train and bus, I am watching people each morning and evening. Granted, I have written much about the pushing, and smelling and the absolute insanity around the trains. Just today, Hanna and I had to just laugh when one woman tried to yank me out of the way so she could get out of train. I was already in the doorway, on my way out and it would have taken her less time to get out if she had just calmly followed me. This morning I was grabbed by the shirt and nearly shoved out of the train. You have to just roll with the punches and understand that life is so tough for so many, they get this survivor mentality and anybody is perceived as a direct threat.

This value for friendship or acceptance translates into how they do business. This can be such a difficult concept for Westerners, especially Americans coming from a very low context culture. We like to walk in, greet, ask the questions we need to know, and get out of there. Not so in India. Indians value time spent with each other, they want to see that you value them at least as much as your profit or own concerns. They want to see that you are willing to spend the one item we in the West have come to guard and treasure even more than money: time.

As we are getting in to the heart of the task we have been given, we find ourselves in the midst of this delicate dance. At times we feel we have accomplished nothing, just to find out that we have made huge steps forward to getting the information we need. I am learning that “accomplishing nothing” is a cultural concept and that spending time together, visiting, listening, sharing is not “accomplishing nothing”. It is building and slowly we are building trust, the foundation.

I don’t think I can ever get fully used to this type of communication and pace, but I have already learned to look at many things differently enough. Like with so many other things, there must be a healthy balance.

In the meanwhile, I am hoping my daily morning greeting is enough to establish sufficient trust with the security guard that he just might one morning greet me back. Of course, it could also be something as simple as a language barrier. Maybe “good morning” sounds like a swear word in his language.