Archives

Modelling Madras (Chennai) by Sue Knight

The air was damp and heavy and there was a pervasive pungent smell in the airport lounge but lounge did not really seem apt. No one seems to lounge much at this airport. We stood waiting and scanning the belt for our bags for an hour before we realised that most of the luggage from our flight had been taken off the conveyor belt almost immediately and was piled in a heap at the back of this arrivals hall. The clues about quality assurance or the lack of it were everywhere. I understood why Ashok had dedicated much of his NLP research to Total Quality Management and I was about to understand much more.

In October this year I went to Chennai (what was Madras) in the south of India to give a series of talks and to run a two-day workshop. This was my first trip to India and a chance to learn about a new culture first hand. What better way to learn than to model what makes a difference? So just when did the modelling start? Before I left in the detailed enriched descriptions that my contact Ashok sent me throughout the year? In the queue to embark where I had misjudged the time needed to check in at what the beginning of half term week and where we stood for 2 hours surrounded by families travelling back to Chennai? On the plane where we met a powerful compassionate Indian woman whose work as a Doctor was now with families in my own hometown of Liverpool? Well of course I was often unconsciously modelling at all of these times and many more but I felt that the real learning began when we touched down. Arriving in India was different from anywhere else that I had experienced.

The air in Chennai is toxic. The fumes from the two stroke mopeds seep through the open windows and even what might seem to be the tightly sealed air-conditioned vehicles. It gets in your clothes, your nose, your eyes, your ears, the pores of your skin. It is virtually impossible not to associate in Chennai. It is an assault of the senses. And I fell in love with it.

It seems obscene to stay in a hotel when there are people laying on the roads outside. It was disturbing how quickly I accustomed myself to these differences. Even in this cool (too cool?) hotel there were signs of lack of precision the phone fixed at an angle on the wall, the unfinished plastering on the balcony, the doors that didnt quite close. And yet the service was unconditional, caring, attentive, and compassionate. We ventured out into the city, onto the beach. There was a passing similarity to Blackpool but passing was as far as it got. Everyone (virtually) stands on this beach. (too dirty to sit). You can buy crushed sugar cane, take a pot shot at a board of tightly packed balloons, have your fortune told by a parrot. The comparison with Blackpool has disappeared without trace. We drove through the heart of the city, cows roaming the streets, rubbish left to rot, and that putrid air pervading every particle of ones being. And yet here in this area in India are the beginnings of the rapid growth of the new Silicone Valley, the home of many call centres for the world. This is a place of extremes.

I had been apprehensive how I could reconcile my beliefs as a Christian with the variety of beliefs and faiths here. Far from feeling isolated (Kerala on the south west coast was where Thomas the apostle was said to have landed and founded a community) I have never felt more at home. When we discussed the Neurological Levels Model of Change we rarely moved from the level of Spirituality. It is the basis of most thinking in India. And it explains some of the differences. We travelled to visit some of the temples and the surrounding stonemasons. The statues being painstakingly revealed from within the huge blocks of granite are perfect. Not a flaw and it is the same with the woodcarvings. An interesting contrast to the work in the hotel. How is it that the Indians can achieve such breathtaking quality in one context and not in another? Perhaps - one is laying concrete and the other building a temple?

Ashoks mother travelled across India alone for the first time on a train to meet with me. A woman who at the age of sixteen abandoned all hope of achieving her dreams of being a doctor to enter into an arranged marriage and to dedicate her life to her husband and her family and to learn how to make it work. I could not ask enough. Just how do you do that and have the spiritual strength that flowed out of this diminutive beautiful woman. Her answer cleanliness, patience and prayer. This visit was one of the first times of her life when she had not cooked three times a day and prayed for most of the remainder. Her soul sang out as we stood at dusk in one of the oldest spiritual sites in India.

We in the West have a lot to learn and my learning was overwhelming realisations about the importance of repeated yess on a mobile phone. Anything else is treated as silence. The almost total refusal to accept a No. The powerful preference for binary thinking and the contribution of that to the Indians outstanding skills in finance and IT. The importance of the right hand over the left. (and any links to strength of left brain thinking), The behaviours that promote hierarchy in every aspect of life. And the humility and selflessness.

Within a week I did not experience a difference between myself, my husband and the people with whom we came into contact. Indian and European had ceased to be the map. We seemed as if we were one. I went to India to model and to train and I came away with humility and soul searching learning.