Scooty Pep+ please.

Merry and I decided to again wake up early to read and get coffee before class. Instead of class right away that morning, we had a press conference with four of the major newspapers in India. They said it would be equivalent to the New York Times coming to interview us. The whole session ended up with us asking them question after question, I hope they got enough information for their stories.

The lecture today consisted of a short informational yoga session by A.R. who has been our guide while we’ve been in India. He is a hatha yoga instructor, which is convenient for me because this is the kind of yoga I have been doing for years. We found out that Mysore was the yoga capital of India. I know how to do hatha yoga well, but it was great to learn the history behind it. The rest of the lecture was about HR in business by Professor Y.K. Shriram. He was a very expressive speaker, and seemed very enthused about the subject. After lunch we headed to the TVS plant. We were all very impressed at how spotless the plant was, especially in India where nothing is clean. At this plant they manufacture motorcycles and mopeds for the population of India. a couple of my favorite models are called the Scooty Pep + and the Scooty Teenz. during the presentation, Karl and I would crack up everytime they said these names. i don't know how you can talk about a Scooty Pep + with a straight face.

That evening we went shopping with thangum again. She took us to a large souvenir shop. Everything was handmade and beautiful. We all ended up going a bit crazy and spent lots of money…oops. Later that evening, Maleah and I hung out in my room and sat up and chatted for hours. It has been such a great experience to get to know the people on this trip. We are a very diverse group, and we all have such unique stories. It’s surprising that we get along so well.

After visiting the TVS factory, my inner conflict of whether I believe that outsourcing to India is a good thing, or bad is getting stronger. It’s great for the US because India has such cheap labor and it frees up time and space for their companies to be more efficient. It is positive for the Indian people because it creates jobs for the fast growing population and filters money into their economy. It just feels like we are exploiting the people of India for their cheap labor, and the corporations of India seem to be exploiting their own workers for the inexpensive labor costs. Who knows what will happen as the world continues to flatten. I’m sure I’ll discuss this further in later blogs.