Blog

Shaadi.com - the modern way to get married? - 13 November 2008
As most people know, most marriages in India are arranged. This is very different from the forced marriages that frequently make news headlines, which ...
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India, UK, Netherlands - the three-coloured flag - 6 November 2008
Recently I met with a MBA candidate at the London Business School. Amazingly, though I am Dutch and he is Indian, our lives, work and interests had sp ...
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What would you do with a sudden windfall? - 29 October 2008
Last saturday I went to buy a newspaper at my local ‘Indian’ shop - a grocers/newsagent which is indeed run by a friendly Sikh. He asked m ...
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Doing business in India in the current financial climate - 16 October 2008
Everyone is hit by the now clichéd term ‘credit crunch’. If you are not feeling the pinch yet, you are likely to be nervous to spend, ...
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How to cope with poverty in India - 9 October 2008
So many times people have told me that they would visit India if it wasn’t for their fear of ‘the beggars and the poverty’. So h ...
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Women doing business with India - 11 September 2008
For women, being in charge of a call-centre or Business Processing Office in India presents a different set of challenges than it does for their m ...
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Nod your head if you agree. Or disagree. Or whatever. - 7 September 2008
A client of mine - prior to being a client of mine, you understand - was running a BPO (call-centre) in India. She explained what she wanted, and all ...
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The Indian Wedding in The Archers - confused? So was Susan! - 29 August 2008
Are you as confused by the Indian wedding in The Archers as Susan was??Let me help you out a little bit. In a 12-minute episode in which there ...
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When half an hour does not mean thirty minutes - 15 August 2008
A few years back I was doing some research in the foothills of the Himalayas when I was invited to join a group of American students on a walk ...
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Could you make more noise please? We are trying to sleep. - 10 August 2008
Ever tried to sleep with a party going on in the house next door? Or stayed over at friends' who live near a railway line when where you live it is ...
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You don’t need to learn a foreign language! You already speak one. - 7 July 2008
Well some words of it anyway. Here is a little story for you:A guy gets up in the morning, puts his pajamas in the washing machine, has a ...
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Do you want to close a bargain deal? Learn the language! - 6 July 2008
A few summers ago when I (a Dutch woman fluent in Hindi) visited Delhi I decided to buy some mangoes. When summer hits North India life becomes incr ...
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Respect - surely it’s the same in all cultures? - 1 July 2008
On a recent visit to central India I met a Swedish couple who had some months earlier moved to India to work for an international company. Being staun ...
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Do you need cultural training? How would you have dealt with this? - 20 June 2008
Earlier this year I visited India to run a workshop in an international school near Delhi. I had corresponded with the transport manager who had ass ...
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