The Indian Mind at Work

‘Whatever one can rightly say about India, the opposite is also true’ – Joan Robinson, Cambridge economist

A cross-culturalist by profession, I should not really show any cultural favouritism, but I confess I love India. As soon as I get off the plane the sights, smells, sounds and sights make my heart leap.

It took a long time before my first visit – just over ten years ago now. But I had yearned to go for many years. Arriving, I soon realised why the Indian Tourist Board markets it as ‘Incredible India’.

The immediate thing to strike me - apart from the characteristic smell, which no-one who has visited will ever forget - was the brightness of colours. Finland, where I live, and the UK, where I was born, seemed monochrome in contrast. And the energy, optimism, chaos, and endless paradoxes never fail to draw me in inexorably.

I often think the Indian experience is like being immersed in the Ganges and pulled along by the irresistible current of what T.S. Eliot called ‘a strong brown God’. Even if probably first inspired by the Mississippi of his youth, I am sure he also had the Ganges in mind. Eliot, and countless other Western poets, philosophers (Schopenhauer) novelists (E.M. Forster), and musicians (the Beatles) have been cast under India’s spell.

My first encounter with the country was a little boy called Sandip Sen in my mother’s class at school in Bolton, North West England, in 1965. I was bewitched by his fine features, gracefulness and almost aristocratic demeanour. My mother, who taught him (I was the same age but in a different class) said he was one of the cleverest kids she had ever met. I now know from his surname he must have been a Brahmin.

Then, in the 1970s, I bought a Vesta packet of dried curry ingredients from the village Co-op and - even if a pale shadow of the real thing - I was entranced by something different from anything I had ever tasted. In my late teens I spent many happy hours in Bharti Spices on Deane Road in Bolton: an Aladdin’s Cave for any budding cook wanting to experiment with Indian food.

At Oxford, I devoured E.M. Forster’s ‘A Passage to India’ with a passion, and read the Bhagavad Gita, the most famous part of the Mahabharata (Great India), the world’s longest poem and India’s National Epic. I eagerly entered into the opulence and grandeur of the 1980s TV series The Jewel in the Crown, and the wonderful Richard Attenborough film, Gandhi, which inspired me to read his life and follow something of Indian history and politics, watching with subdued awe the traditional funeral pyre of Indira Gandhi in 1984.

Many of my Western clients need to work with Indian partners and can struggle to understand the culture. In this context I first benefited from the invaluable advice and kindness of Hemant Rangan, who is infallibly wise and generous with his time and assistance. Since financial deregulation in the early 1990s, many foreign companies have opened in India, and the decisions made at that time seem to be unfolding in a sort of ‘national karma’, as the economy grows steadily. This has meant increasing contacts between Indians and the rest of the world. The movement is not only inwards, but also outwards as Indians study in the USA and UK and seem to build success wherever they go. It is astonishing how many CEOs of big Western companies – like Microsoft, Google, IBM, Adobe and Mastercard, to name a few – are of Indian origin.

Growing economic interdependence, as well as more governmental and educational exchange between India and the rest of the world, has meant strong demand for cultural understanding in both directions, so this book is timely indeed.

Of course, there are always problems in progress as well as opportunities and, sadly, some traditional values and social structures are being eroded. Hemant is not shy of casting a critical eye on the country and its challenges. But his love of India shines throughout as well as the urge to widen and deepen understanding of this most complex and fascinating of cultures.

The range of The Indian Mind at Work is astonishing.  Beginning with a magisterial overview of the cross-cultural field in general, he pulls the reader effortlessly into all the big topics – Time (crucial for understanding the Indian way of life), Hinduism, mythology, history, logic (differences between Western binary thinking and Indian tolerance of ambiguity), overall cultural traits of Indians, including attitudes to foreigners – the list of topics leaves no stone unturned.

And - importantly for the business reader the book is mainly aimed at - there is a plethora of practical business cases and advice for working successfully with Indians.

The structure makes the book an easy read, both in a linear way, but also as a reference work to dip into when needed. Hemant’s style is crystal clear yet full of imagination and rich with storytelling, examples, and metaphor. Who could resist an early chapter entitled ‘Lessons from the Jungle’? It instantly evoked Kipling for me and made me curious. Of course, Kipling is considered a controversial figure by some nowadays, but I see Hemant as in the tradition of Indian psychologist Ashis Nandy who has a nuanced approach to Kipling, and indeed to colonialism. Hemant is always nuanced; able to see things from all angles; intellectually playful, and brilliant on the paradoxes that make up this most intriguing of nations.

If you want to understand the Indian Mind at Work, you need go no further than this book and Hemant Rangan.