Delhi Belly

I succumbed to “Delhi belly” within 24 hours of arrival in this city. Fortunately, I’d brought a prescription for this anticipated condition from home, although it didn’t take effect as fast as I’d hoped. No more need be said on the subject, but visitors to India should prepare in advance for the possibility of gastric distress.

Fellow lawyers welcomed me warmly to Delhi, with one prominent name partner of an Indian multi-office firm hosting me at dinner in his (palatial) home and another offering a lovely lunch with good conversation at a fine restaurant. The clientele of these successful lawyers is principally American and multinational corporations, rather than Indian businesses. Unlike American law firms, Indian firms also operate affiliated businesses in areas ranging from legal process outsourcing (LPO) to consulting/risk management, and security, audits and investigations. As long as the two entities are legally distinct, Indian law allows this multi-line approach to professional services.

American lawyers should note the responsiveness of our Indian counterparts. Client calls are returned almost instantly, if not answered on the spot, and every lawyer I met carried both a mobile phone and blackberry. Indian lawyers in Delhi firms work Saturdays or alternate Saturdays, and text messages are acknowledged on receipt. The Indian press reports that there are 600 million cell phones in use in India, and it seems that about 500 million of them are in use at one time!

Prompt responsiveness is not confined to lawyers, either. In the 5-star hotels, requests are dispatched immediately. For example, reading a newspaper in the breakfast room in Delhi’s Taj Mahal Hotel, I asked a waiter the meaning of the word “recce” in a business news headline. He confessed not knowing, but five minutes later returned with an opened dictionary, where I learned it means “reconnaissance” (as in a reconnaissance mission). The headline concerned an executive from WalMart on recce with an executive from the Indian company Bharti, as the two companies plan a retail joint venture in India. I loved reading Indian newspapers and picked up new words daily – my favorite was “millihelens,” which represents a unit of beauty for a female. (A woman with a high millihelen level has a face pretty enough to launch ships, like Helen of Troy.) I’ve never experienced faster response times from room service or housekeeping in any other country – a request for additional clothes hangars was answered in less than a minute, and in each hotel, the in-house technology staff provided internet connectivity assistance in 5 minutes or less.

A Delhi BPO firm was less impressive than its Mumbai and Bangalore counterparts. The company office was a microcosm of the crowded city streets, with job applicants jamming the reception area, workers wandering around the hallways, overcrowded elevators, and a chaotic scene in the break/snack room. Senior managers referred to the company’s employees in unflattering terms, suggesting they are unmotivated and disloyal, meaning they will job-hop for a few thousand rupees in monthly salary. A Q&A session with the supervisors of the operations staff impressed me, however –they were well-versed on various aspects of US financial services programs, and we had a lively and wide-ranging discussion of the effects of interest deductibility on Americans’ willingness to assume mortgages, and about the characteristics of different types of mortgage securities. The BPO firm collects delinquent mortgage payments and the supervisors asked about the legal distinction between personal service of foreclosure notices and service by publication. I fielded questions about penalties for failure to give mortgage disclosure notices timely, and if the 3-hour visit hadn’t ended, I would have been asked for a briefing on privacy requirements under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. Without doubt, the BPO firms are eager to pick up as much information as they can, as quickly as they can.