Pardon Me?

This has become my most frequent phrase thus far. While I feel I have made significant improvements over the course of the week, I still have a long way in order to understand clearly words spoken to me.

While we are on communication issues, I find it fascinating all of the languages that are spoken throughout India. Bangalore is located in the state of Karnataka, and in this state/region alone, there are six languages spoken that are recognized by the government as official languages, not including English. They are: Marathi, Konkani, Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, and Telugu. Overall, there are 22 spoken languages recognized by the Indian government, with over 1 million natives throughout India that speak each of these languages. However, the census data from 2001 indicated that there are 29 languages that over 1 million natives speak, 60 additional languages are spoken by at least 100,000 natives, and 122 more spoken by more than 10,000 natives.

I have found that most of professionals on my team speak at least four languages, including English. I don't care who you are, but that is impressive! Most of them primarily speak Kannada most often, as it is the official language of the state of Karnataka.

We started training sessions on Wednesday for our team, and they will extend through the middle of next week. Everything seems to be going well so far, but the true test will be when we actually start preparing tax returns to see if the knowledge sticks or not.

Here are a few more pics from our offices at the RMZ Infinity Office Park.


Our tower from the courtyard in the complex




The courtyard between the towers




The entrance to our tower




One of the numerous training rooms in the office