Meena Barot has been a good friend from the time we were colleagues at Ranbaxy. She is from the sales side and looks after the western region while I head the corporate communication side.
The most striking thing about Meena is her vibrancy and vigour: a spinster in her 30s and a senior manager in a thriving pharma company.
She was promoted to our China office and her brief was to find suppliers of bulk drugs and based out of Guangzhou. Meena was assigned to that post simply because the other managers had chickened out. Any assignment in Europe and USA was grabbed at a sniff while China got no takers.
Armed with a few China books and web searches on the net, the doughty lady went to the red dragon. She kept writing to me as a friend and I could see hopelessness of her situation.
First month, she wrote about how no one understands English and how getting vegetarian food there was Herculean. “Amit, I see live crabs, snakes, turtles, dogs, cats at the hotel. These are a specialty and one gets freshly cut animals for a meal!!! . Now, I shop for vegetables and do my own cooking”.
Second month, she wrote: I have decided to learn Chinese. Yesterday, I paid 45 Yuan for a tea when a native would not even pay 5 Yuan. These people have two sets of rates and sometimes I pay more than 10 times over the price just because I can’t speak Chinese.
I taking tuitions from my secretary Suu Han for an hour everyday and for which I fork out 250 Yuan!!!
She finished six months and now almost comfortably ensconced when she phoned me from Guangzhou. “Amit, please do me favour. I have a bad attack of Thyroid and have gained over 10 kgs weight besides feeling exhausted all the time. I checked for doctors here and mentally, I am not comfortable visiting a doctor here. I am more likely to be given tiger’s kidney for a prescription. Can you meet my doctor Mr. Shukla, an endocrinologist at Santacruz and ask him to offer consultation through the internet. You can then pack off the medicines in the official courier. Now be a good friend and get the doctor online as soon as possible and before I die”, she chortled.
The doctor was amenable to an online patient and her thyroid is more under control now. She later wrote: Thanks to your medicines and my gyming. I feel much better.
At work too, she has proved sharp. She has sourced two vendors with huge cost savings that we now import these drugs to India and are more competitive. The top management too has woken up to the potential of China and sent more executives to assist her. From a one person office to having 6 people by the end of the first year is a remarkable achievement.
She came to Mumbai for the annual vacation and I asked her,” Why did you go to China and how did you manage all on your own?”
Meena cheerfully said,” Amit, there are only two possibilities – whether I can cope or I cannot. If I do, I expand my skills and if I don’t after a sincere attempt, I can retreat safely back to Mumbai and no heavens will befall. Either way, I win. I love China so much now that the natives treat me as one of their own. Today, I speak Chinese almost as good as my English and what a great adventure it’s proving to be”.
I clasped her hand and said,” Only you can do that”.
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