Hyderabad, which is known to be a huge commercial district for IT companies after Bangalore, has Google’s largest office outside of the USA with over 6000 employees, Microsoft has a base which you can easily mistake with a university campus and the overall scale is not comparable to other countries and reminds you that you are in India. Actually, the current CEO of Microsoft is from Hyderabad.

I am supposed to be a CEO of an IT company, but I visited Hyderabad not for its IT centralized location. In fact, I visited Andhra Pradesh state (which is supposedly called AP state) to research the possibility of AGRIBUDDY connecting with farmers in the area, AP state is next to Telangana state where Hyderabad is located. We are going to investigate what to do to spread AGRIBUDDY to ourselves, this is it. Apparently, Hyderabad was also a part of AP state until 2014, but the state broke up with Telangana, so the state capital disappeared. Until they build a new state capital, they decided to use Hyderabad for the time being. So, I had to go through Hyderabad, to meet the AP state’s government officials. As expected, India never lets you down with all its puzzles… (lol)

Well, as I arrived at the airport, I was struck by something which is truly Indian, but since Ms. Shigeta was going to meet me in Delhi the next day and would support me from there, I wasn’t too worried and got a good night’s sleep at my hotel.
By the way, Ms. Shigeta worked in Shanghai after graduating from the University of Tokyo, then moved to Delhi and has lived there for almost ten years, I am pretty sure she is the only person in Japan with such a unique career history. I was amazed to see her greatness from the following day.

Indian people love to talk. On this trip I met only the key persons of the provincial governments and the people surrounding them, so everyone was quite smart and argumentative by nature. It seems like the Indian style to interact with each other is to encourage each other using words against the first person’s reasoning (or words). If you try to cut through in the middle, they will continue the conversation with a higher volume and speed, leaving no room for us to interrupt. I got a lot of experience discussing in such style which I call “endless speakers” in Japan, talking with Mr. Yorihiko Kato who doesn’t even breath while talking, or my mentor Mr. Nagae who is good at overlapping conversations. But you know, Indians are at a totally different level. (lol)

They just don’t listen, well they interrupt and keep talking about whatever they like to talk about, so I felt defeated and had to turn to Ms. Shigeta to call the conversation off and get to the next appointment. But she would tell me that everything was okay, “They are trying to listen so let’s try a little harder.”, she would tell me.

What!? I have no room to judge the attitude of them “trying to listen”, but I have no choice but to leave it up to Ms. Shigeta.

Then, as soon she finds the moment that the other party seems to have ended what they wanted to say, she would compete back at them with words such as “For example, there is such a way of thinking, but etc. etc.”, the words were literally bursting out of her mouth, but she was also careful not to deny the opponent. I have seen many Japanese people who are fluent in English, but I have never seen anyone who can debate like she does. And the Indians of course debates back on her opinion too with ten times the reasoning to back their opinion. Ms. Shigeta would carefully listen and slowly fight back to them. I have never seen anything like it and I would say it is a work of art.(lol)

Well, I just can’t be like her.

According to Ms. Shigeta, if you are able to debate in such style, the opponent acknowledges your skills and in time that forms trust. But, if you debate back with denial, it doesn’t work well, only by accepting the other opponent’s opinion and telling them our purpose firmly and simply, it will work. It is a competition of patience, courage and smartness. I felt a glimpse of the reason why Japanese people are not good at interacting with Indian people.

With such unusual manners, each appointment easily takes two hours, we had six meetings like this in two days, and we got commitment of support from everyone. I would not have been able to do this on my own and I really appreciate it.

Now, there is only one direct fight between Siem Reap and Hyderabad per day and that departs Hyderabad at 1 AM (3 AM in BKK), arriving in Bangkok at 6 AM with only 3.5 hours in the air, a sleepless flight it is, and it sure requires physical strength. I will probably have to travel there from time to time from now on, but it is going to be a game of stamina. . .