Indian Dabba services take off in the US

Tasty article in the New York Times today about the flourishing dabba services for Indian immigrants in the bay area and in Redmond, Washington. The Annadaata business profiled in the article started as a home business but today employs multiple delivery people and cooks specializing in cuisines from different regions of India. We talked about the original Indian dabbawalas in our operations class last year and I remember reading stories about Prince Charles and President Clinton visiting dabbawalas on their visit to India. It’s good to see the dabbawalla concept take root in the US and I hope I get to try this service soon. You can read more about the Annadaata service at their website.  

Follies 2006: The show that was

The Follies shows at Ross happened last week and I had an absolute blast being a part of the festivities. This year, I rapped as Al Cotrone (the Director of the Office of Career Development at Ross) in a skit poking fun at recruiting activities, played a ‘Bus’ dude in a skit modeled after Missed Connections, and helped write, direct and shoot a video skit based on Bollywood movies.

I got compliments from a lot of people about the Bollywood skit and it also received a ‘Rosscar’ from the Monroe Street Journal. A Lion’s share of credit for the Bollywood skit goes to Meera Rao. Meera along with her MAP team came up with the idea for the skit when she was in India and she’s the one who wrote, directed and then skilfully edited (with Mike Sanders) the final product. We used the song ‘It’s the time to Disco‘ from the movie Kal Ho Na Ho and it was thrilling to hear the entire audience for the Saturday show clap along when the song come on in the skit. Kudos also to the entire Bollywood cast – especially for choreographing their own dance moves and for acting and dancing without complaining in 25 degree weather. I’m having major Follies withdrawal right now and as one of my cohorts said this morning -‘ Why can’t we have Follies all the time?’.

I have a picture of my rapping performance with my awesome flygirls and my OCD recruiting medley cast after the post. You can find more Follies pictures here.

India fever in Davos

I came across this article in BusinessWeek earlier today about the full court press that India Inc. is employing at the World Economic Forum in Davos to trumpet its arrival on the global business scene. India has a 115 person strong contingent at Davos that includes stalwarts such as Mukesh Ambani, Sunil Mittal, Amartya Sen and even Parmeshwar Godrej (?).

The bit about iPod’s loaded with Indian music being distributed caught my eye and I wondered what music they’re loaded with and how long before one of them showed up on eBay. The article ends on a slightly pessimistic note noting the infrastructure and poverty woes in India. While, one has to acknowledge areas for improvement, a concerted marketing effort for the country on the international scene is nothing to sneeze at. Bravo India Inc. !