On To Ahmedabad

After a last breakfast at the Taj President, we met with Rohan and Sameer Bulchandani. The two brothers gave us a description of the challenges and opportunities successful Indian businessmen encounter. Rohan began his own outsourcing service company after facing difficulties in manufacturing. Following his passion in computers and discovering a more favorable tax environment, he began building his business. Sameer continued to build his company that specializes in the distribution of hardware to the aerospace industry.

Both have faced roadblocks with constantly changing tax rates, a lack of infrastructure, low quality education, and corruption. Yet, they have persevered.  Rohan’s company provides a 6 month long training course to educate workers. Sameer has had to become more adaptable to work with government regulation. The brothers concluded the meeting with a discussion of how they see the upcoming elections impacting their businesses.

After the meeting, we stashed away the Mentos that had been placed at our seats, packed our bags, and headed to the train station. There, we said goodbye to our amazing assistant tour guide Sam and bus driver who had gotten us through the trickiest turns and tightest spaces in Mumbai and the village. Upon boarding the train, we realized that our suitcases were way too big to fit in the allotted compartments. Luckily, Chetan was able to place them all in the back of our railcar.

Just as we settled in, other passengers began to board the train. One family decided to paparazzi Don and take a picture of him with their child. Perhaps they recognized him from his child stardom days, or maybe they confused him for Rahul Gandhi, as others have. The second exciting event of the ride came when we stopped at the next station. Ten young men hopped on the train and started walking up and down the aisles shouting out the various foods they were carrying on them. The cardboard boxes strapped to their shoulders were filled with water, mango juice, Lays potato chips, tea, Indian salty snacks, wafers and other Indian foods. Because we didn’t have enough time to eat lunch before the train ride (well, besides our stashed Mentos), we were some of the best customers.

We continued our journey, trying to entertain ourselves with sleep, staring out the window, and working on our memo, slightly jealous of Joe who had prepared well for the journey with two seasons of The Sopranos loaded on his iPad. While staring out the windows, we were surprised as we stopped in Surat, Gujarat just around sunset. The dinner cooking fires had filled the sky with a gray haze. Shacks and garbage lined the train track lines as we approached the station. As we continued to Ahmedabad, the streets became cleaner and we could see lights in the distance.

We arrived at the train station in Ahmedabad tired and hungry. After meeting our new assistant guide, we left the station. We forgot all about how tired and hungry we were as we tried to dodge auto rickshaws and cars to get to the bus. Thirty minutes later, we arrived at the hotel where we called it a night.