The following is written by Brent Peterson MBA 2011 for his Applied Management Research Project:
December 10, 2010
What an interesting place. Flew in yesterday. Got a taxi, the taxi driver missed our exit, so he just put on his blinkers and started backing up on the freeway. Woke up this morning at the Park Hotel. Went down and had breakfast, which was a mix of maple donuts and Indian food (we were really excited about the maple donuts). Indian food is the same food for breakfast that you get for lunch or dinner. I went out for a tour of the city while Jack finished up some remaining school work, only to find out later from Priya that I paid way too much for my rickshaw. No big deal. He took me around the city and then took me to all of his friend’s shops or the shops where he receives a commission. We later found out that this is standard practice. I think I frustrated the first shop owner because I had no intention of buying anything.
Priya arrived around noon. Team 41 was now 3/4th present. Lena’s visa had not yet come so she had to reschedule her flight. Unfortunately, this was only the beginning of what would become her four-day travel nightmare. We got lunch and walked around a little bit before we met with Rajesh Bansal, our main contact at the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). Rajesh was surprised and impressed by our knowledge of the goals, functions, and progress of UIDAI. He kept saying, “that kind of question comes from someone who has done their homework.” We ended up having a two-hour conversation with him and left feeling very optimistic about our upcoming field visits.
The next day we drove for five hours to get to the Taj Mahal. Absolutely breathtaking. We went with Raj, a friend of Priya’s. We tried bargaining with locals to get us into shorter line, but in the end just ended up waiting. Everything is a negotiation here. It makes the simplest exercises interesting and a challenge. Luckily the line turned out to be only 20 minutes instead of the two hours we’d heard about. We had a great time. Between the four of us we must have taken over 1,000 pictures. Jack and I got some strange stares from two guys. I feared that they were sizing us up to rob us, but I think they were just awestruck with Jack and I being the tallest, whitest pair of Americans they’d ever seen. We got home pretty late and crashed.
Stay Tuned for Part II on Monday, January 31st!
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