The Nomad - Deloitte Employees' Social Page
With Alexander Annaev

In this month’s edition of the Nomad, we talk to Alexander Annaev, who has worked in Consulting for two years. Alexander used both paid and unpaid vacation totaling 3 months to volunteer for the Conservation Action Trust (CAT), a non-profit environmental organization based in Mumbai, India. He had several reasons for undertaking such an endeavor:

“As an ERS consultant focused on Corporate Responsibility & Sustainability services, I wanted to gain some environmental expertise, as well as try living in one of most vibrant cities in the world, where the famous ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ was shot.”

Being the first time Alexander had visited India, his first moments in Mumbai were quite a culture shock, as he was surrounded by “shabby buildings, narrow streets, heavy rickshaw traffic, and crowds in ethnic clothing.” However, within a couple of days he had become accustomed to the pace of the city.

While in the Mumbai, Alexander stayed in a 4-room flat on the top floor of a modern building in Versova, the district where most Bollywood stars live. He had a Bollywood starlet for a neighbor, and lived with 10 flat mates, who were also working as volunteers, and hailed from places as different as the US, UK, Germany, China, Bulgaria, and Tanzania. The entire group worked for different charitable organizations in Mumbai and often went out and traveled together.

Alexander was kept extremely busy during his trip and, as part of his work for the CAT, he helped to organize various activities, such as writing a script for the “Indian Story of Stuff”, a local version of a famous documentary about consumerism. He also had the chance to use his business skills in preparing a marketing plan for the Mangrove Wetland Center, drafting the organization’s pilot annual report, and facilitating two sessions on eco-tourism, as part of capacity building workshops for village fishermen. He also got to see some of the wilder areas almost every day when he ventured out of the city to carry out environmental monitoring in the mangrove swamps around Mumbai.

Mumbai’s unimaginably crowded local trains, for which the city is famous, will live long in Alexander’s memories. With 10 passengers per square meter, and 7% of passengers actually traveling on the outside of the train carriages, it proved to be quite an experience. Unfortunately, given these hectic conditions, it is somewhat unsurprising that 10 people die every day on the city’s train tracks.

“I spent about 3-4 hours every day in this kind of transport. Getting on and off was definitely a challenge! I felt proud when I could jump off a train while it was still moving, so as not to have to confront the inevitable mad crowd ready to leap on board when the train stopped.”

Another feature of the city is its extensive slums, where 55% ofMumbaikars (the local term for citizens of Mumbai) live. Alexander visited these areas to learn about local businesses and lifestyles, discovering in the process that there is more to the slums than meets the eye.

“The slums actually perform a useful function for Mumbai, as the locals sort out and recycle waste produced by the city’s wealthy classes. But they pay an unacceptably high price in terms of health for carrying out this work, and it often costs them their lives. The unhygienic conditions are truly terrifying. While on the train, I saw many men using the area in front of the railways as a toilet, as only one person per 1,000 slum dwellers has access to genuine toilet facilities."

In spite of the slums, Alexander noted that Mumbai is considered the glamour capital of India, with its colonial architecture and Bollywood movie sets. While it could seem a daunting place, even for Muscovites, Alexander did not hesitate to recommend the city as a destination for the more thoughtful tourists among us, adding that:

“It just depends on what you are looking for. Like Moscow, it has posh hotels, restaurants, and boutiques. But I prefer the other side of it. I enjoyed staying in India so much so that I almost felt like an Indian myself by the end of my time there.

“It is an up and coming country of abundant business opportunities, with friendly people, a magnificent culture, and amazing natural wonder. If the experience has taught me anything, it is to be more flexible, open-minded, sensitive, friendly, and proactive in my life.”

Published Date : 2 October 2009

Trains

They are just packed as cans with fish. According to my guidebook, for every square meter you have 15-17 bodies You should be very quick to get on and off, otherwise you can get stuck in a crowd rushing in and rushing out. 10 people die every day on the railways.

Indian trains have separate compartments for men, women, fishermen, handicapped and people with cancer. I spend about 4-5 hours in public transport a day: I take a rickshaw to get to the station, and then change 3 trains to get to Novi Mumbai, where one of our offices is located. I pass many districts, including slums (55% of Mumbai's population live in slums). Every district seems to have it's own smell: decaying organic rubbish, burning plastics, stagnant water, and simply dung. Today I have observed a line of men performing morning toilet procedures just in front of the train.

Hi there!

I’m back on the blog, as I’m experiencing the craziest city in the world – Mumbai, the financial capital of India.

The adventure started in Domodedovo Airport. I was offered to pass as a business class passenger due to my Emirates ticket, but found myself in a line of other “business” people departing to Tashkent and Ashgabat. And what do you think? One of them was Toytya Sonya, a former owner of the shop near my place in Ashgabat, and she recognized after seven years. When I was flying from Dubai to Mumbai, a had a seat near the emergency exit, close to the place where flight assistants usually seat while taking off and landing. So, I had a beautiful Taiwanese girl just opposite to me, and we talked a lot during the flight about her job in Emirates and living in Dubai. I gave her a business card, and hope she’ll add me on Facebook.

When I came to Mumbai, I found myself on a different planet. We took an old rusty taxi to the apartment. The traffic was crazy! We crossed slums so similar to the slums in “Slumdog Millionaire” with dark people lying on the streets. You can see auto rickshaws everywhere. Generally, this is the main way of transportation, and they are quite cheap.

My apartment is in a relatively good area for the upper middle class, my still there are many poor people there. I live on the 12th floor with a fantastic view to the Arab sea. The apartment is huge, but looks rather empty. The weirdest thing is the shower, where you water comes to the flow and you have to flush it to a hole in the corner with a special stick. We have about ten people leaving in the apartment, mostly Americans. But one American guy is that is actually a Russian. There is also one Bulgarian who speaks Russian. Everybody is impressed that I’m working for Deloitte.

Today an AIESECer helped me to catch a train to the area where my office is. The trains are as overcrowded as Moscow elektrichkas, but they don’t have doors, so that many people are falling from them. The office of Conservation Action Trust, an NGO I’m volunteering at is in a prestigious area. My boss is very friendly. I’m supposed to meet different people in the organization, and decide what I’m going to do. Most probably, I’ll also participate in a project on protecting flamingos in the Mumbai area.