Priyanka - Namaste London

Most of you, if not all am sure are very familiar to the word ‘Namaste’ which is a common word of greeting, respect or acknowledgment and is derived from the Sanskrit word namas. Simply put, it’s the Hindi word for Hello. There was a very popular Bollywood movie with the same title released a year ago.

Before I came here, I was curious to know what the new work environment and local culture would be like, how I would manage getting around making new friends and was not sure about how I would settle in. But, nothing has been so much fun and exciting as settling in London.  Convenient access to Indian spices, restaurants (with famous chicken tikka), Hindi movie cinemas, big Indian communities and lots of friends from Mumbai make me feel at home i n London.

In my experience in the last 3 months, I have learnt that it’s best to draw from the similarities of two cities and value the differences in them. Mumbai is very vibrant, busy, crowded and a friendly city home to important financial institutions and headquarter to many Indian and multinational companies. Its one of the most liberal places in India.  London is fast paced and one of the worlds most important business, financial and cultural centre. Having an opportunity to live in these two cities and work with Prudential has been invaluable. That was a polite introduction though......

Few among the many, similarities are that both the cities are very well connected by trains.The difference lies in the skills that you develop...in one it’s the ability to maintain your calm amidst daily quarrels, build the physical strength to push your way in and out and in the other it’s the patience to put up with surprise announcements of the main stations being closed due to overcrowding just 2 minutes’ before your destination is to arrive. If this was maintained in Mumbai, probably the economy would collapse as people travelling might not reach their work place at all. This way,it might not even need a credit crisis. This is probably best explained through the pictures below. Talk about stretch opportunities and Momentum. Completely new set of challenges everyday!!

By the way, Mumbai apparently is the one of the very few cities in the world where you can make ‘Train friends’ term popularly used because most in the city spend half of their lives commuting and share a common purpose which is to make sure that you get out at your planned destination (there is no guarantee of this!!). In my experience so far, in London you barely smile, leave alone making train friends.

Good frequencies of buses in both cities make travel convenient too. In one, the doors don’t open when they are barely crowded and in the other even while there are no literal doors, you can’t enter. Take a guess which situation belongs to which city??

Traffic has a different experience in both cities which is worth noting…. I wish Faye and Ann good luck on their trips to India..(Though they might not really have the pleasure of experiencing it unless they are in Mumbai)..Please share photographs on the Momentum community site if you do go to Mumbai.

Oh, and installing broadband in London takes 2 months (without exaggeration…Larisa will agree on this am sure.) while in Mumbai it would take a day or max 2.

It has been fascinating as the experiences in London are so diverse. Right from enjoying different dance ballets (like the Antonio Gades’s Carmen at Sadlers’ Wells theatre with Faye), to learning salsa (Jaspreeth is in the same class by the way – it’s a secret. should have Jas lead the Talent show in Seoul), Lion King Musical last week, proximity to international events like the G20, beautiful weekend getaways and lots more. Being part of Momentum has an added advantage of already having friends who warmly welcome you to a new city that makes life much easier. Although, Karianne and Jaspreeth have given up on asking me out for lunch. Sunita on the behalf of GHO Momentees is a wonderful host, organizes welcome drinks & can make you feel comfortable in a new place instantly.

If I now continue to only share the great time outside work, am sure the Seoul development week would be my last one.

Fortunately, while I was in India, because of the buoyant economy in the last couple of years, growth was pursued aggressively. This led to an increasing role and responsibility of having to introduce a Talent management process for the funds business. Educating existing and new managers on identifying talent, differentiating between performance and potential and creating tools for their reference were few of the responsibilities among many others. Next steps like development programs, having line managers to drive this was all in the thinking. My role in Group head office provides me with a wonderful opportunity to see how the talent management process differ in different business units across the group; contribute to the standardization of key aspects in the process and build in flexibility where necessary. The role gives me a great opportunity to interact and develop relationships with seniors and others in the HR function of different BU’s.

Back in Mumbai, at this time of the year i would be struggling in my long commute to work in the scorching heat in March and here I am enjoying the pleasant weather. (for me, this is definitely very pleasant).Although, I must admit that when I arrived in London in the month of January, I was quite nervous when I had to wade through snow to make it to a meeting to which R&D heads of different BU’s were already present the day before. But realised, it wasn’t tough as I have already done it in waist deep water during the floods in Mumbai back in 2005. In anycase, a little adventure when the learning at work is so exciting is always welcome. Today, I value not only the experience and learning at a Business Unit & Group level but also the real learning that you experience while living in a new city.

Please dont hesitate to contact me if you would need any skill based training to make it in any of the two cities :)). Pru has indeed achieved its goal. What say??