A fortnight in Paris - IIM Lucknow students' international module

I got a chance recently, to go to the land of pretty girls, tall towers, large palaces and elaborately embellished places of worship. Partly because I haven't seen too many foreign countries and I was excited to do so, and partly because it was part of my curriculum at IPMX (1 year MBA program at IIM Lucknow) and I didn't have too much of a choice, I grabbed the opportunity with both hands.

Now, statistics suggest that it takes an alert person approximately 2 weeks to assimilate an alien culture, and co-incidentally, my visit was scheduled to last exactly 14 days. (Of course, like most other statistics you've come across, this one too, has been concocted on-the-spot, entirely with the intention of sounding convincing and knowledgeable about the point just made.)


So anyway, in the little time I was there, I came to know a lot about the people there. For example, the general impression about people from this part of the world is that they have w-a-y too many holidays and that they never get any real work done. Well, that is slightly true, but only slightly. The new generation is very task-oriented and is changing the work-culture dramatically, getting the job done inspite of all the holidays/ frequent strikes and closures of work. Even though the customer-service is quite literally, pathetic, the general public itself is a pretty helpful lot (which is to say that if a certain individual is paid to be helpful, he won't be; its only when you establish a momentary bond with him/ her, preferably in his/ her mother tongue, that you can hope to receive any assistance).

The country spends a good amount of time preening its history and reminiscing about the "good old days when we used to be a power to reckon with". Indeed, the country does have a fabulous military past, and judging by its considerable number of architectural masterpieces, a better-than-fair cultural heritage. There are a good number of sites of historical significance scattered in the national capital region alone.

Foodwise, the country is a gastronomer's paradise. You can hardly ever go wrong with anything you pick on the menu. And the chef's there love to compare everything with the creations of their brethren in Great Britain. Seriously, if you want to tick someone off, make a mention of the British. "I dare you to. No, I IMPLORE you to", said our professor.

People love to speak, and appear intellegent at the same time (two traits which force them to be helpful on the street, 'coz they'd hate to say "I don't know" to anything).

There's a strong sense of the family, and although it is slowly eroding, it's not quite dead. People love to engage in mind-games, speak without really saying anything of value, haggle... hmmmm..... now that I've started to write about my experience, this could easily be an account of a visit to India by a Frenchman. We aren't too different after all.