Jump to content

Indian (dot) movies


Celery Man

Recommended Posts

I started a new job in September where I work closely with several teams based in India - Pune, specifically. And there are quite a number of Indians in the organization stateside as well. I'm getting the hang of the accents, the early mornings, the head bobble, etc, but I would like to work on understanding more about India, Indians, American-Indians, their culture, etc. And a low impact way in which I would like to start doing that is watching movies and tv shows and shit like that. I've seen Slumdog Millionaire and the Diwali episode of The Office and I'm realizing that that may be about the extent of it. Probably The Big Sick doesn't count because he's Pakistani and that has absolutely nothing to do with being 2nd generation or anything like that. I know there's that Bruce Springsteen movie, maybe I'll watch that, or some seasons of Indian Matchmaking. Gandhi sounds grueling but I suppose I could try. I don't think I quite want to dive into Bollywood. Any media I could dunk my head into that is enjoyable and would give me some nice context for the culture?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Celery Man said:

I started a new job in September where I work closely with several teams based in India - Pune, specifically. And there are quite a number of Indians in the organization stateside as well. I'm getting the hang of the accents, the early mornings, the head bobble, etc, but I would like to work on understanding more about India, Indians, American-Indians, their culture, etc. And a low impact way in which I would like to start doing that is watching movies and tv shows and shit like that. I've seen Slumdog Millionaire and the Diwali episode of The Office and I'm realizing that that may be about the extent of it. Probably The Big Sick doesn't count because he's Pakistani and that has absolutely nothing to do with being 2nd generation or anything like that. I know there's that Bruce Springsteen movie, maybe I'll watch that, or some seasons of Indian Matchmaking. Gandhi sounds grueling but I suppose I could try. I don't think I quite want to dive into Bollywood. Any media I could dunk my head into that is enjoyable and would give me some nice context for the culture?

No offense, but I don't think you are going to really get much more than a superficial understanding from film.  India is a vast, ancient, and diverse place.  If I were you, I'd start on the region from where the teams are from.  The languages they speak.  Their relevance to English colonization.  Their history.  Food is a great place to start.  I have a team in India, have visited both Bangalore and Chennai, and we always circle back to food and family.  When I am with them, I want them to expose me to "real" regional cuisine.  You'll have to wipe your ass with a snow cone after, but it's worth it.  

  • Hook 'Em 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Celery Man said:

I started a new job in September where I work closely with several teams based in India - Pune, specifically. And there are quite a number of Indians in the organization stateside as well. I'm getting the hang of the accents, the early mornings, the head bobble, etc

I’ve had directs in Pune for 10 years now; can deal with everything but the 30-minute time zone shift. What the fuck man?

  • Hook 'Em 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, BabaYaga said:

No offense, but I don't think you are going to really get much more than a superficial understanding from film.  India is a vast, ancient, and diverse place.  If I were you, I'd start on the region from where the teams are from.  The languages they speak.  Their relevance to English colonization.  Their history.  Food is a great place to start.  I have a team in India, have visited both Bangalore and Chennai, and we always circle back to food and family.  When I am with them, I want them to expose me to "real" regional cuisine.  You'll have to wipe your ass with a snow cone after, but it's worth it.  

Yeah, I agree that watching movies are not going to help much. I've been interacting with employees from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal for over twenty years and still have a very rudimentary understanding of the cultures in the Indian Subcontinent.

I've seen personal conflicts between Indians and Pakistanis or Hindus and Sikhs. I've dealt with Indians that apparently don't speak the same language because India has over 20+ languages and not even Hindi is spoken the same. Shit, I once upset a Pakistani for pronouncing his Urdur name with a Hindi pronunciation.

Over the years I've taken the "speak English or die" approach and I think it works best.

 

1 hour ago, Ignatius said:

I’ve had directs in Pune for 10 years now; can deal with everything but the 30-minute time zone shift. What the fuck man?

I have directs in Pune and that 30 minutes always fucks with me. Plus I have a guy in Newfoundland that is also off by 30 minutes which also throws me off.

  • Hook 'Em 1
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, 52-80 said:

I have peers from the region whose corporate rank do not match their cultural/caste rank and watching the subtle infighting between them is 🍿🥸

i'd love to be able to pick up on this shit. again not expecting that i'll learn that by watching Blinded by the Light but even without the right context I can tell that there are interesting politics at work

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, 52-80 said:

I have peers from the region whose corporate rank do not match their cultural/caste rank and watching the subtle infighting between them is 🍿🥸

I had to fire a guy over there because his boss was ‘below him’ in social status and he couldn’t get the fuck over it for 8 hours a day. The employment contract they sign specifically addresses this.

Edited by Ignatius
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

30 minutes ago, Ignatius said:

I had to fire a guy over there because his boss was ‘below him’ in social status and he couldn’t get the fuck over it for 8 hours a day. The employment contract they sign specifically addresses this.

These guys are outwardly nice to everybody else. Theyre only catty towards one-another and it feels like some sort of OSU-Michigan resentment but it lives on every single day. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.



×
×
  • Create New...