So begins our new adventurer tale from Matt Wennersten, an international education consultant and entrepreneur. Regular readers of A View Abroad may remember Matt from his guest blog, “Expat Advice for Finding a Job Abroad.”
“Moving to India was easy,” Matt says. “As the spouse of an Indian citizen, I qualified for the ludicrously named ‘Person of Indian Origin’ (PIO) visa, a combined residency and work permit. Living in India, though, is hard. There are hundreds of wondrous things about India. Yet, for all that is exciting and delightful about India, this country is rough terrain. I had been warned by one of my friends in Washington D.C. how tough it might be. I had no idea.”
Matt provides real life expressions of the frustrations that often come with finding a new life in a foreign land. “India is a culture imprisoned by bureaucracy and bound by paper files,” he says. “Knee-jerk security laws mean that opening a bank account or getting a telephone line require waves of documentation, beginning with proof of residency. Even expats sponsored by a company struggle in India. For example, apartment leases in the company’s name don’t help an individual demonstrate actual occupancy.”
How do you cope with a system bogged down in bureaucracy? “As with many things in India, the trick is to unlearn efficiency, be patient and think like water,” Matt offers. “Pour water against any barrier and it will meander by its own weight into the smallest cracks. Ultimately, it is impossible to keep out its relentless drip; water finds the unblocked channel.”
Take a few minutes to read Matt and Malathi’s excellent adventure to Chennai, India…I think you’ll enjoy it.
