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MT India Digest
Moderated Discussion List
"Effective MT Forum"
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Published by:
MT India www.MTIndia.org Moderated by:
Amit Chatterjee,SM
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Mar 02, 2002 Digest #075
.................................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... =========FEATURED POST=========== -=The Blakes Go to India=- ~Cheryl and Joe Blake
"Part 2 - Bangalore and Beyond." ===========CONTINUING============ -=Frauds in MT=- ~A. Jabbar
"Believe me, home transcription is not a workable proposition. " ~Shekhar Wankhede
"Iridium - Usurping money given UPFRONT!!" =========FEATURED POST=========== From: Cheryl Blake <
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Subject: Part 2 - Bangalore and Beyond
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Dear fellow MTIDer.... During the year 2000, Ms. Cheryl J. Blake spent a nine-month stint
in Bangalore, India. She and her family lived and worked directly
with Indian transcriptionists. We are publishing a series on their experiences, as a regular
feature. Enjoy! I also invite Indian MTs to come up and share their
experiences of traveling and working in the US and with USMTs. Your Striving Moderator,
Amit C.
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----------------------------------------------------
Continued from MTID #74........... Holding my flower, I scanned the crowd at the airport for a card
with my name. We were met outside by the Indian branch manager, and
the two men that I'd be working with at the production center.
There were three cars to meet us, as I'd e-mailed ahead to let them
know we were traveling with 14 pieces of luggage. We piled into all
three vehicles, marveling at the right-side drive and feeling just
a little funny sitting in the left front seat with no steering
wheel or pedals. Robbie was so excited to be sitting in the
"driver's seat" and pretend he was driving. It was an interesting
experience for each of us, and I'm sure Joe has some additional
comments about the traffic. THE TRAFFIC!!! Special analysis by me, Joe. My
credentials....former CHP Officer, Class A Vehicle/hazmat-endorsed
license holder, approximately one million miles driven without an
accident. My detached and professional analysis has led me to
conclude without prejudice only one thing: Indians are CRAZY.
Period. Whether you are reading this letter on the East
Coast or the West Coast, you have no idea of what traffic is until
you've seen traffic in India. The idea of traffic law enforcement
is not a valid concept. The western word "traffic" does not
translate to what amounts to every type of vehicle being on either
side of the street at the same time. When I say every type, I
really mean that. Buses, cars, trucks, tractors, vans, motorcycles,
motor scooters, ox carts, pony carts, auto rickshaws, carts pulled
by people, and bicycles (the kind you pedal). These regular
two-wheeled bicycles are ridden right with the traffic.
Occasionally there are lines on the road, most times not. When
there are lines, they are completely disregarded. The size of the vehicle determines the right of way. Buses are at
the top of the food chain; pedestrians are chum. The motorbikes are
ridden by women in sarees. There are small Vespa scooters with
families of 4 perched upon them. Imagine one scooter with Mom
sitting sidesaddle on the back with a baby in her lap, and a
toddler standing in front of Dad, who is doing the driving.
Seatbelts are optional, that is if the vehicle comes equipped with
them. If seatbelts are in the vehicle, they rarely work. Driving on
the left side of the road is not too strictly adhered to. If, for
instance, you are entering a roadway it may be that you decide to
simply drive against the flow of traffic, weaving between rickshaws
and cars until the opportunity to merge with traffic going in your
general direction presents itself. The horn is sounded
approximately every 100 feet in order to announce your presence. A
subtle system of head movements and hand gestures signals
acknowledgement of the horns of other vehicles around you. What makes driving here such a difficult concept for a westerner
like me is that all assumptions about other drivers actions that
are so ingrained as to be instinct are useless here. No one stops
at an intersection. All vehicles move through simultaneously in all
directions at once, honking and waving as they go. The vehicles
around you will not stop or slow down for pedestrians. They will
honk. The bus coming at you head on, on the wrong side of
the road will not stop or slow or move over as it approaches you,
but it will honk. If it is a scooter, you will honk and maintain
your heading and the scooter moves over. It will pass you on either
side, but that is no concern of yours. You must always pull out
into traffic when there is no space to do so. The other drivers
will slow or veer slightly to avoid a collision while honking. They
have already assumed that you were headed straight into their path
and have anticipated which way to swerve to avoid you. In the US,
you would obviously have assumed that they would not stop and you
would never knowingly pull into traffic with no regard to oncoming
traffic. I have observed many times that our driver as well as
other drivers do not even look towards the oncoming traffic, They
sound the horn and look towards where they are headed to see whom
they should honk at. We saw our first cows by the side of the road as we left the
airport. Yes, there really are cows on the streets of Bangalore. It
was explained to us that they don't just wander the streets as
sacred and protected creatures. They belong to someone who set them
loose on the street to graze upon the free grass, refuse, or hand
out. It was quite amusing to think that we crazy Americans thougth
that homeless cows just wandered around aimlessly. By some
mysterious mechanism unclear to me at this time, owners somehow
keeps track of their own cows and haul them home for occasional
milking. Our lodging immediately after arrival was at the Bangalore Club,
built by the British in the 1870s. Our suite was a one-bedroom
cottage with a sitting room of Victorian origins. It was filled
with antique furnishings, had a terra cotta tile roof that created
an open beam 20-foot ceiling, interesting bathroom fixtures, and on
at least one occasion, a troop of monkeys in the trees outside of
our door. The club itself was a reflection of fading Imperial
British splendor. Beautiful gardens, flowers, grass, swimming pool,
clubhouse, restaurant, children's playground, and grocery store all
staffed to excess by western standards. The pool, for example, had
an attendant who had two assistants who would further summon
helpers to fetch drinks or food. The pool had a Deco diving
platform arrangement with built in fountain. The clubhouse
contained the restaurant painted in powder blue with floor to
20-foot open beam ceiling columns about 4 feet in diameter. The
foyer contained a collection of mounted buffalo heads, an entire
stuffed panther, a mongoose, various elk, assorted antique swords,
guns, and other weapons mounted on the walls. There were also oil
paintings of past club presidents, members posed with their trophy
kills, and landscapes of countryside long ago engulfed by the
sprawl of the city. With no cooking facilities, we were obliged to eat our meals out.
Johnny declared the scrambled eggs at the club restaurant better
than Grandma's. Sorry Mom! He'd never had his eggs undercooked and
served with the sweetest ketchup ever made. This is where we began
to discover in earnest how quirky the customs of India are to
otherworlders. One morning Cheryl asked for a menu. We were advised
that a menu would not be available for about another 20 minutes, as
the person who handles menus was out at that moment. Hmmmm.....I
guess it's a good thing he was not out sick or we never would have
had one. We think the same thing happened when we asked for glasses
of water. "Sorry sir, no water." We had water given to us on
previous days. I observed that 3 or 4 other tables had glasses of
water on them. "Sorry sir. No water." One can only wonder if the
person whose job it is to fill glasses of water was also on break.
We overcame this by returning to our room and bringing our own
bottle of water and a canteen back to the restaurant. This is just
one example of a continuing multitude of minor mysteries neither
resolved nor fully understood, but merely sidestepped for the time
being. And that my friend, is the secret to living in India. ........to be continued. (c) Cheryl and Joe Blake
39685 Mountain View Road
P.O. Box 205
Yermo, CA 92398-0205 Comment?
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================CONTINUING======================= From: Jabbar. A <
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Subject: Home Transcription Dear MTIDers, If your assets are only the skills acquired at KITS, better forget
about home transcription. If you still persist, MSquare of
Trivandrum used to be offering this. Many of your friends had paid
Rs 10,000 each. Believe me, home transcription is not a workable
proposition. It is not worthwhile throwing away good money after
MT. I learnt it after spending Rs 15 lakhs! Regards, A. Jabbar Comment?
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++++ new post - same topic ++++ From: Shekhar Wankhede <
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Subject: Usurping money given UPFRONT!! Hi Amit and MTIDers, We are a small MT unit at Nagpur. What I want to tell other
MTIDers, is that there is a major racket going on in the name of
outsourcing work in India. We paid a significant upfront "fees" to
Mr. Pradeep.V.S, MD of Iridium Technologies India Ltd. We did a
background check and found out that they were in this business for
over 3 years, and were also production partners of HealthScribe
India Ltd., Bangalore. We did trial work for them for three months, with regular feedback,
to bring our quality upto production standards. We have further
been working for them "live" for a further period of three months!
Till date we have not received any payments, and we are
apprehensive of the future. When we started to do some digging we found some interesting facts,
especially regarding an account which is originally being outourced
by Healthscribe to Iridium. What we found was that the same
client's work(i.e. exactly the same files) was being sent to five
different MT companies by Iridium, on similar terms as worked out
with us. My contention is that we concede that it is possible, considering
we are a relatively new unit, that our quality might not have been
to the mark as stipulated under our contract with Iridium, however
there arises a question of intentions on Iridium's part. If Iridium
had any intention to outsource work to us or the other units, why
would they be subletting the same work to us all. This clearly
demonstrates malafide intentions on Iridium's part. They never
intended to give us the work, but to pocket the upfront fees! It is
shocking that HealthScribe should be outsourcing to such dubious
partners. I implore all other MTSOs who have been or are potential candidates
for being taken on a ride on such terms, to come out and put
forward their case in this forum. Unless such companies are
blacklisted and weaned out, this industry cannot stabilize in this
country. Anyone who has suggestions on how to go about tackling this, please
come forth. Thanks for allowing me to present my case. Regards to all, Shekhar Wankhede
Director
NEOVISTA
www.neovistatranscriptions.com Comment?
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