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Five 'efficient women' help run a biz for biz-people

India-bound business execs find relocation services helpful

Much before the foreign nationals reach India, GA sends them a pre-arrival 25-minute video on life in Madras/Tamil Nadu. The video tells them about the streets in Madras, the transport facilities and the Indian and international schools. The GA Website also provides details about India and offers to clear doubts through e-mail.

Upon reaching Madras, foreign nationals are offered GA's information package at their hotelrooms. Among other things, the info pack assures them they can drink the water available in the hotel!

GA also chalks out the programme for the first two days. The expats are taken on a tour of Madras and "almost all of them close their eyes during the first 20 minutes" as the Indian traffic scares them. GA offers them a dekko at a few select houses and helps them in negotiating the rent.

GA does not stop the association there; it continues through the India stint of the expatriates. GA runs a help service on the telephone.

Ranjini runs GA along with five "efficient women". The centre started as 9-to-5 service, but sometimes "we do get frantic calls even at night! Our phone numbers are with all our clients and we are there whenever they need us.

"Recently, at 10.30 pm, a maid committed suicide in my client's house. The client was devastated and did not know what to do. I too was shocked. My husband and I reached her place quickly and helped her through all the formalities," says Ranjini.

GA charges its clients only once and depending on the service provided, it varies from Rs 5,000 to Rs 20,000. And the help offered during the rest of their stay is free! GA has extended its service to Calcutta, Bangalore, Delhi and Bombay. GA has also diversified into the domestic scene, to help Indians headed for foreign countries.

On offer are training in management style, business culture, day-to-day life, complete with tips on the use of the fork and the knife.

Among all the expatriates she has helped, Ranjini found the Americans the most adventurous. "They are always willing to learn more about India, the Indian people and culture. Those from East Asia are introverted, they prefer to remain with their own group of people."

Ranjini says poverty disturbs the expatriates so much that all of them search for voluntary organisations where they can donate money. A client of Ranjini has adopted a school, another paints schools on weekends and another collects money to pay for the education of street children.

Will and Dorrey go to a fishermen's village on weekends and distribute biscuits, fruit and toys to the poor kids. "The kids have become our good friends now. We have readjusted our thinking so much that the chaos on the roads also does not bother us now," says Dorrey.

"Experiencing India through the bombardment of all the senses is quite different. They get the fragrance of jasmine from the same streets that emit foul smells of open sewers. It takes at least six months for them to get over what we call "the culture shock," says Ranjini.

But to the English woman Ingrid Briggs, it took only two weeks to get over the culture shock. She had the advantage of having lived in much more difficult situations in Poland and Moscow. She and her husband had visited the northern part of India as backpack tourists. "We were very, very excited to come to India as things were very depressing in Moscow."

She elaborates: "Business establishments were being closed almost every day and people were leaving Moscow. It is much nicer to be living here as an expat than walking in the sun and exploring the land as a tourist!"

She is all praise for GA. "This is my third move. Nowhere did I get this kind of service, not in Warsaw, not in Moscow. In Madras, everything is easier. I'm leading a normal life."

Maureen of Canada was apprehensive before she set her foot in India. She and her family moved to India "on the spur of a moment", without even proper hotel booking. GA was of immense help, she says. So helpful, life seems beautiful in India. "Perhaps, I might need a 'going back adjustment' when I have to return."

Martina Mansoat of Switzerland came to India when Bayer, the pharmaceutical company, transferred her husband. She had problems in communicating with others due to her accent and poor grasp of the Indian languages. But the "private problem" never bothered her. Life in Nigeria, their earlier posting, was worse. GA made their life in India better.

The expats agree on one point: "South Indians are a friendly, warm and hospitable lot." The expats arrive with fears and anxiety writ large on their minds, but at the time of leaving, they wish their stay were longer, after being bowled over by the famous South Indian hospitality.

So much so that these expats would rather move back to their home countries than any other region within India.

Photographs: Sreeram Selvaraj

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