Read on…
I was leaving a building in Hyderabad’s Gachibowli area, the centre of Hyderabad’s outsourcing/ software world, with a Microsoft campus as nice as their headquarter in Redmond, Washington. My day job at the time involved selling financial software to companies that did outsourcing work for investment banks (as discussed earlier in Part 1). “Leave immediately” said the man I had gone to meet. He wasn’t throwing me out. He was telling me to rush hearing what time my flight back was. Cyberabad, as Gachibowli is apparently called, looked far nicer than Houston in terms of modern glass buildings, which might appear awful to a western eye, but to us on the wrong end of history when it comes to economic progress, a massive IBM and Accenture sign, instead of a goat on the outskirts of our cities, makes us proud. The roads leading in and out of them however are another story. That is, they aren’t there. There’s something in its place but it wouldn’t fit the traditional definition of “road”. Hence, his advice to flee to the airport with time in hand.
As I was waiting for the Thyssen Krupp elevator (a Dutch elevator company which seemed to be enjoying a boom thanks to our outsourcing), I looked at the names of other outsourcing companies. BritMed, I assumed did something with prescriptions of old British people and I was comforted by the fact that a lonely retiree in Swansea would have a calm Andhra voice telling him what pills to take every night. There was ClubMed Help, which I assumed were packaged holiday makers screaming about missing a ferry or getting the wrong salad in a cruise buffet. DriveSeattle which I assumed were lost outdoorsy Americans from Seattle on their satellite navigation devices returning from camping holidays trying to solve the dual issue of guessing where the SatNav helper was and trying not to drive into a bear. Another said International Date Line, which had nothing to do with the actual nautical thing but I believe was some sort of dating helpline for London singles. I think if you were unhappy with a date or you believe the person lied on a website, you called this line to complain and patient citizens of my country heard Anglican romance woes and I guess either promised a refund or sent you photographs of cuter people.
All of these, it seemed to me, were fairly as expected. Till I saw a sign on a glass door in what had to be the smallest office on that floor with a hand-written insignia. It read “Save American Lives. Interview today”.
I had to go in.
It was a small little room. Reminded me of a mid 80’s Air India waiting room in a town like Bagdogra or Agartala.
Seated, was a large-ish man who looked like a cross between a Punjabi army colonel and a secretary of Bangalore Turf Club. He also had on a 70’s cravat (floral pattern), the deep smell of a forgotten YSL cologne and the kind of moustache only seen nowadays on retired people who own parrots.
He assumed I was there for the interview.
“I am the CEO” he said. “Come”.
He held up another hand-written piece of paper that said CEO.
Without warning, he broke into this monologue. I should explain the accent which I can best describe as American, only in the specific circumstance where America’s greatest actor Mr. Sylvester Stallone and our greatest actor Mr. Rajnikanth’s American accents were meshed in a blender. Which I foresee happening soon enough.
“See all these other call centres are doing what? Nothing. Some phone call here, there, nowhere. Now what am I doing? Ask. No I will tell you. I am telling Americans who are going to kill themselves, don’t do it. Talk to me. That’s my company, SaveFirst. I have applied for an ISO certification and patent in US is pending also. See, the concept is this- if everything can be outsourced, why not saving American lives? I am going there this week, to US, as soon as I find a good candidate. Over there, it will take some convincing, I will get a customer. Marketing is my core niche. What is there in this actually? I used to be in home appliance repair outsourced on phone and that’s a problem area because repairing cannot be done on the phone and all these Samsung and all have their own call centres. So limited expansion. But with life and death? It is limitless. And now look at America? What is America? With all these Lehman Brothers and all. You think everyone will live? No. Some poor, some depressed, what is the first thing they do over there? Take a tablet? Next thing, call suicide helpline. Me, I am saying, I will do suicide helpline but from this office. Cut the costs by 80%. All those PhD’s, doctors, nurses, shrinks, whatever, fire them. I will say to them- what is your concern? Saving lives no? As long as that happens, you are fine. Then why keep all these things there? Send them here. If driving help can come, travel agency and credit card and all, why not this? What do we not have that they have to tell someone, eh don’t be depressed, don’t die. Nothing. We have it all. English is all you need to save lives no. We have that. I’m telling you man, billion dollar business, we are sitting on a goldmine. This is the next Infosys. You can go home today and tell you parents you are the first employee of a new Infosys. So you have graduated?”
I made some feeble apology and ran. Not because I thought he was mad (which he clearly was) but because I was also mesmerized enough to buy into his argument. And more worryingly, I may have ended up working for him. It seemed to me, insanity aside, he had a strong claim. That is, if morality were taken out of the equation in building a country entirely entrepreneurial trying to shed any vestiges of shy Gandhian socialism, this could be as valid a business idea as the Ford Motor Car or Tata Steel. That if we ignored the appalling deeper meaning of what he was suggesting and took it for what it was, why couldn’t the deeper psychological fears of a person be outsourced just like one would a petty clerical problem like car insurance or cell phone providers?
It raised all sorts of brilliant questions I didn’t have answers to. Was this man our new India version of The Great Gatsby? Was he what happens when you take Lalit Modi (the brilliant entrepreneur who fled the nation earlier that month), the teachings of business guru Arindam Chaudhury (whose books were on his table) and push their entrepreneurial drive a bit further than allowed? Clearly, when one looks at the building of a new India, a fantastic mix of brash optimism, carefully orchestrated oligarchy, the nearly superhuman manoeuvring around an established bureaucracy, ingenuity elevated to art, one can’t not think of 1920’s Fitzgerald’s America, where, as Woody Allen explained in Zelig, “The morals were loose, the money to be chased, the rhythms syncopated, the booze flowing and your reality far crazier than your dreams”.
I missed my flight but I couldn’t get this man out of my head. And his call centre. And if it became a success or a failure, how he’d look back and reflect. I wanted to create a business motivation book written as he saw the world and what we were living through. And through it, his philosophy, not just on life, business, money but something far more difficult that he claimed to stake everything on. The human soul.
1-888-Dial-India was my attempt to understand him, his ideas and the nation he wanted to build. And to see if in some way, it resembles the real nation we inhabit. That comparison is left to people far cleverer than myself – you.
A critic describes Anuvab Pal’s latest novel – 1888 Dial India- as
“A very funny satire on inspirational business books”.
It is available here -
http://www.flipkart.com/books/8184001584
And reviewed here
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/1888-dial-india-about-india-and-its-follies/187944-40-101.html.
An excerpt here -
http://www.firstpost.com/ideas/the-call-centre-of-last-resort-1-888-dial-india-102227.html
