An Open Letter to Mohit Chandra

Before starting on this post I highly recommend reading this piece on the NY Times site.

The venerable NY Times has always been like a great river, meandering across the cultural and political scape of the great nation, city and even the world. Influencing and been influenced by the vox populi. Like any river, however, there are always the flotsam and jetsam that accumulate in murky currents and lately, the open blog section seemed to be playing that part for NYT.

Of course, much could be said about the tone of the article itself. The self righteousness with which a company, whose intake forms a minuscule part of total hiring in India, ridiculously oversimplifies the expectations of all the employers into five bullet points, and how those five gospels were in turn looking like vague generalizations picked up from a classified ad for a B Town "coaching" institute ("Spoken English & American Taught Here", anyone?)

Maybe I should ignore those (Having wasted a paragraph on ripping it, of course!) and concentrate more on worrying about the state of consultancies, in general. The hallmark of any consultant worth his salt is the maniacal focus on data, and the facts that are built over this rock bed of information, statistics and numbers. Data that would stand the onslaught of any analysis. And what do we have here? Stuff that could be ripped apart by anyone with a college degree and a reasonable understanding of social interactions. Of course, I'd still be digressing from my real intent, which is to answer a couple of questions raised in this well distributed article; not for the purportedly massive number of employers who it represents but to the actual massive number of people who this has been distributed to.

English speaking ability.

At the risk of sounding defensive, I believe that among non-native speakers of English, we have mastered the language the best. Of course, there are varying levels of expertise, depending on a lot of factors. Some that can be changed and some that cannot be. My point? If you take a large enough sample-set and evaluate any skill, there will always be far ranging disparities. That is why there is something called a job market, an economic structure and an interview process; to identify the right person for the right work. Dear Mr Chandra, I am sure your article with non-sequiturs peppered all over ("Life is good – except that it’s not." "exhibit behavior like job hopping every year") would decorate the dustbin of any decent magazine but you are (Again, I am assuming) a damn good consultant, aren't you?

Ability to think outside the box.

Gross generalization, which is the hallmark of this article, is used here with an irrelevant example to further shore up the claim. I don't want to nitpick each and every false claim on display but will say this; Along with the employee, the organization too plays a pivotal role in ensuring that independent thinking is fostered. There are millions of examples where this is stifled or buried under bureaucratic layers across all industries. Indeed, the claims made are outdated and the rising wave of innovation that we see today in India is an example of that; the Flipkarts, InMobi's and Notion Inks are born from the "ability to think outside the box" of the same graduates who you so flippantly dismiss as produces of a cookie cutter system, Mr Chandra.

The sense of outrage that fueled me to start this post has seeped out and has been replaced by a feeling of resigned fatality. The "gravy train" we are on, built and driven by people like you runs on our blood and sweat and aspirations too. I am disappointed that you have, with multiple strokes on a keyboard, drawn a big question mark over the collective foreheads of the recruitability of the graduating classes. But you know what I am more disappointed with? That you are being seen as the voice of the organizations that recruit them. Which is a shame in itself as most of these organizations you chose to represent are breaking out of the erudite shackles. Shackles like the "5 point program for better employees" that you are imposing. Orwellian undertones aside, I sincerely hope that this is not taken as a representation of those fine organizations (like the place I work) who looks for in their employees much more than the mere ability to string together an objective statement in their resume.

Much as I believe that this article is not the voice of the employers or represent the employable, I also believe that neither is my post a representation of the absolute picture. There are outliers everywhere, exceptions more than the rule and exceptions that are the rule, a bell curve for every population and a place for every idea. If I were to strongly advocate something it would be this; "All Generalizations are false, including this one!"

Red, Blue and Purple

[For time and the world do not stand still. Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future - John Fitzgerald Kennedy]

Human spirit is a strange thing. Even in the face of the inevitable, when it actually happens, we experience the exhilaration and joy akin to the feeling we have at a surprising turn of events. That was what witnessed across US (and the world!) today.

Indeed, one of the most striking images that will stay with me as a mark of this election is the sight of hundreds of black people celebrating with chairs raised over their heads and screaming with joy. What is it that it is so striking, you may ask, as this image is splattered all across the US of A? The reason is that this was not anywhere in the US but in a remote village in Kenya.

In an unprecedented turn of events, we saw this US election turn into not just an American spectacle but a global event. You had tribes in Kenya supporting him, Democrats Abroad in Chennai having an all night vigil in front of the TV and the largest turnout for Obama, surprisingly turning out to be the 100,000 crowd in Berlin (I can’t emphasize enough on Berlin!)

A lot of euphoria may vanish over the days as the stark realities of recession hits home hard, A lot of grins may turn into scowls as the strict tax reforms are implemented by the man, and Democrats Abroad in Bangalore may start resenting him for the reduction in outsourcing but the fact that one of the most narrow minded (not to mention Paranoid)democracies in the world when it comes to its leaders has elected a African American with a last name that sounds similar to its most dreaded enemy and a middle name same as its erstwhile enemy , is definitely one of the greatest turning points in contemporary history.

As Oprah put it succinctly, "It’s no longer going to be about Red or Blue, It is going to be about Red, Blue or Purple" Away from detractors in the US and at home in India, I feel that finally when a US president says "Us, the United States of America" he means finally the UNITED states of America; Not just the white, but of the Black, Brown, Yellow and Red.

PS: Was it just me or did Bush's congratulatory speech for Obama sound a little condescending?

[This article was published by me first at Desicritics. You can view the original article here]

Paranoia, Transformers, & the Free State

[Thies was published before at Desi Critic which is also one of the places I write in]

Recently at the Heathrow airport, there was this incident of an airline traveler who was asked to change his t-shirt because it featured a Transformer robot carrying a gun — a robot with a gun that apparently posed a threat to flight safety.

So the long list that includes safety razors and toothpicks (“Stop! Take this plane to Libya or…er…we’ll shave your brains off!!”) has been updated to include items as innocuous as T-Shirts and (heaven forbid!) chequered lungis.

Now seriously, how exactly do they rationalize adding printed tees into the list of items banned during air travel? What to they think? That mid-air, Megatron would metamorphose from the T-Shirt, hijacking them away in search of the Cube or would he demand destruction of all hard detergents? I am sure some bloke with a wild imagination and an overdose of Transformers can be blamed for it.

The actions of the free world (read the U.S.) since 9/11 have been predicable, disturbing and laced generously with paranoia. Patriot Acts and War for Democracies, Aggressive Diplomacy and extensive Bipolarization…Above all; the transformation of even mundane tasks that transverse across borders into something that makes even the seasoned partisan shudder. Let it be airline travel, visa interviews, IRC, Blogging or Freedom to wear a T-Shirt.

The fat cats fail to realize that what their actions based on an overzealous protectiveness is fulfilling the terrorists’ agenda more than their own. What they achieve with one tiny blast is realized tenfold or hundred fold (depending on the location, Indians shrug it off and Americans respond with fixing the third shotgun in their cars gun rack) by the seismic waves of restrictions, gagging, acts that inevitably follow. What they need is not blanket bombing of these into the unsuspecting populace. Indeed, it would well serve them to remember that even the actual blanket bombing was a ridiculous failure. They need to craft precision surgical strikes based on the strong core of intelligence gathering and extensive cooperation among the countries of the free world. Alas, the power-hungry politicos across the globe know that these do not work as well as their scare tactics in filling up their ballot boxes and hence try to disregard them.

Only Israel, secure in its Jewish nationalism and having (almost) selfless democratic machinery managed to do this successfully. Spiriting away Nazi war criminals from Argentina and demolishing the whole terror apparatus behind the Munich attacks using kidon teams. This resoluteness and ruthlessness, which Goda Meier possessed, needs to be imbibed in our leaders for them to react constructively.

Till then let us keep our Batman underwear and Shaktimaan Parle G biscuit packs at home while travelling.

the untold feminine

[ah, women. they make the highs higher and the lows more frequent…- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche]

It's an odd sensation, watching your feelings slowly change over time, seeing your strong positions erode as events batter down on them. My conversation with one of my aunts recently made me think parallel on something that’s been nibbling at my mind.

She was the one who initiated me into the wonderful world of Malayalam literature populated with authors who seduces the reader into a world where they play around by shifting your preconceived ideas and notions. One of the best works I had ever read was Randamoozham by MT Vasudevan Nair. It showed the Mahabharata or some events from it from the eyes of Bheema. The title literally translates as “The Second Turn” and it explores the events from the angst ridden view point of Bhima who has to wait for the second turn always. Be it for the love of his parents, conjugation with Draupadi, the throne. He is sometimes literally reduced to a pawn in the hands of wily politicians like Krishna, Vidura and Shakuni.

Ah…I diverted and dwelled into what might be a separate post. So we ended up on the topic of Draupadi, who was forced to divide everything between her five husbands and slowly to the topic of strong women in literature, mythology, history, politics or even art.

What appeared as a lurking shadow at that moment at the back of my mind slowly crystallized into a solid realization: “where have all the strong women gone?”

Where have the Margaret Thatchers, Magdalene Marys, Anna Kareninas, Drupadis et al…

Is it because that there are no more devotees to put them in their pedestal? The strong feminine evolved and was envisaged by equally fervent admirers, mainly male. Tolstoys, Heaths, Vyasas…

Why don’t men project women in that light anymore? Why have women in print and media diminished in size or being constantly chipped at?

I believe that it has got to do nothing with women being smaller. The problem is that men have shrunk-withered by complexity-and men are so busy trying to grow up with women that they no longer have time to sing of them.

the one you feed

One evening an old Cherokee Indian told his grandson about a "battle" that goes on inside people.
He said, "My son, the battle is between 2 "wolves" inside us all.

One is Evil. It is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather:
"Which wolf wins?"
The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."

life...redux!

[everyone has a george carlin moment in their life....everyone. i detail mine...]

most unfair thing in life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time. What do you get at the end of it? A death! What's that, A Bonus?! I think the life cycle is all backwards. You should die first, get it out of the way. Then you go live in an old age home. You get kicked out for being too healthy, go collect your pension, then, when you start work, you get a gold watch on your first day. You work forty years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement. You drink alcohol, you party, and you get ready for High School. You go to primary school, you become a kid, you play, you have no responsibilities, you become a little baby, you go back, you spend your last months floating with luxuries like central heating, spa, room service on tap, then you finish off as an orgasm!! Amen.

zarhat

[i don't know whether war is an interlude during peace, or peace an interlude during war -georges clemenceau]

i found this in amit varma's blog india uncut:

just off the corner of namak mandi, i get chatting with a gentleman named mohammad anwar, who makes and duplicates keys. as soon as mr anwar learns that i'm from india, he asks , "have you heard of sher shah suri?""er, yes," i reply."well then, you must know that he built the grand trunk road, which connects peshawar to calcutta. now, that grand trunk road, to me, is more of a truth than india and pakistan."he nods wisely here. i nod as well.

(the gt road actually goes beyond both peshawar and calcutta, but you get the point.)

auto-mation?

it happens only in bangalore

apocalypse

"ring a ring of uranium,
pocket full of plutonium,
fission, fusion,
we all fall down."

imagine...the countries of the world standing in a circle.
imagine...they are holding hands.
imagine...they are chanting this..

the force

(drum roll) dum..dum..dum..dum-de-dum..dum-de-dum...
long time ago, in a galaxy far far away…

i was watching star wars yesterday. not one of the new fangled episodes i to iii which are choc a bloc with visual effects and cgi (i mean, george, i know you own ilm and probably don’t have to pay a penny for those server farms but there’s a line between visual eyecandy and visual diarrhea!) but the original star wars which is now episode iv: a new hope.

its one of my favorite movies ever. if you strip it down and examine it all you would find is a storyline that’s mediocre, visual effects that are asinine and a slew of confrontations. but add george lucas’s magical story telling approach, harrison ford’s charisma, james earl jones’ voice, stunning landscapes, plethora of weird and inimitable characters (chewbacca an all-time favorite!) and an ensemble cast you get pure unadulterated magic!!

if you haven’t watched it yet go to the nearest video store and grab a dvd of all the three classic star wars movies. get the digitally re-mastered version, they have better visual effects. may the force be with you!!

hell hath no fury and heaven hath no rage…..

THE author was talking about the woman scorned in the aforesaid lines. I mean it the same way too. Only that, here, the woman is Mother Nature. The often violated and abused, venerable Mother Earth. As we go hurtling down the cliffs off progress we seem to be realizing the words of Agent Smith in “The Matrix”

“…but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A Virus…..”

Heart goes out to the countless lives lost. What makes it more tragic is that the fraction of children among the casualties seems to be more. I always feel at a loss for words when I try to, you know, say something meaningful and apt. I am failing at that here too. I think its better that I leave it here….Hoping that their souls are in peace…Hoping that we the survivors realise before its too late to respect nature.

What is heartwarming is the spirit of humanity that has been awakened in people all around the globe. The spirit that fills us with hope. Hope for a better tomorrow. Words are not enough to describe the courage of the countless Men and Women battling against Red-Tape, Nature, Transportation hurdles, Sickness et al and working day and night to bring a little relief to the stricken souls. All is not lost when hope springs eternal.

In finale I would like here to quote a particularly apt passage of Milton's Paradise Lost:

Like a dark Ceeling stood; down rush'd the Rain

Impetuous, and continu'd till the Earth

No more was seen; the floating Vessel swum

Uplifted; and secure with beaked prow

Rode tilting o're the Waves, all dwellings else

Flood overwhelmd, and them with all thir pomp

Deep under water rould; Sea cover'd Sea,

Sea without shore; and in thir Palaces

Where luxurie late reign'd, Sea-monsters whelp'd

And stabl'd; of Mankind, so numerous late,

All left, in one small bottom swum imbark't.

How didst thou grieve then, Adam, to behold

The end of all thy Ofspring, end so sad,

Depopulation; thee another Floud,

Of tears and sorrow a Floud thee also drown'd,

And sunk thee as thy Sons

the road not taken

[ two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference - robert frost ]

one of the greatest advantages of being a part of the human race is that you have a sense of consciousness. I mean, we do not live a hand to mouth existence; we don’t live for just the basic necessities of life. Our sole objective is not to worry the where the next meal is gonna come from or who is waiting for us to come by to be their next meal.

as we live, breathe and eat, we also think, dream and imagine. We think of our past, dream of tomorrow and imagine about the infinity. Infinity, I don’t mean the inverted 8 that we are so used to in our Math and Physics classes. It means the unknown, the could-haves, the endless existences which we live in a different time and space patterns. We constantly think of what our life would have been if we had chosen differently. Did I take the right decision? Where would we be if we had taken the right decision? Much like the protagonist in “The Road Not Taken” by Frost.

one thing we got to remember that in life there is no right or wrong decisions. At one point of time, when we are faced with choices we do think that one is the right one and the other(s) wrong. We think so because we look at the choices through a fabric of moral, social and psychological fabric woven into our perception due to our experience, education and upbringing. In life there are only choices, which are varying shades of gray. And like shades of gray, they alter their color in different lights. Also, decisions are such that once taken its tough to go back to. We have to accept what we did and move on. There is no going back in life. Only moving forward…On, on and on….

read the poem : "The Road Not Taken" - Robert Frost

drunken musings

[ beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy - benjamin franklin ]

my apologies if my blog starts to look like an alcoholic’s diary. Well, that’s all there is left to do in this city now. Who would have imagined that the crazy movie makers here would come up with an even crazier embargo on all non-kannada movies!! What next people? Convert Casa Piccolos and Jukeboxes into “Casa Sagars” or “Juke Darshans” and serve idlis and ragi muddes? Gimme a break! Anyway, I’m positive about this. Oppression of masses with crazy ideas didn’t start today or yesterday, it has been happening for ages and they were soon shown the door. Fingers crossed!

now where was I? Yeah, drunken binges!! Thursday was good. I would say half of Brigade Rd and Residency is missing because I drank it! My apologies to people who I called and talked to, after that. Its just that alcohol takes me to a level where I have more than the usual amount of love and friendship to share with people and I want to share it before I’m sober. Also, in case you are wondering if those were the words of a drunkard, hold it! I meant every word of it!!

ok, I sense some disapproval here. “Control your drinking” “Its bad for you” Yeah, yeah, let me tell you two things; First, I don’t drink too much. Period. Second, do you know that Alcohol actually makes you smarter? Don’t believe me? Read on….

well you see, it's like this... A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This is natural selection and is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members. In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Excessive intake of alcohol, as we know, kills brain cells. But naturally, it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, regular consumption of alcohol eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine. That's why you always feel smarter after a few drinks.

supreme sacrifice of drinking vodka

[ I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they're going to feel all day - Frank Sinatra]

SOMETIMES when I reflect back on all the vodka I drink I feel ashamed. Then I look into the glass and think about workers in the distillary in Russia and all of their hopes and dreams. If I didn't drink this vodka, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. Then I say to myself, "It is better that I drink vodka and let their dreams come true than be selfish and worry about my liver."

existential angst

WHAT is it? Something that epitomizes the agony of the non-elante life. The torment of day-to-day existence which is like an endless vista spread across the horizon as far as you can see. A life less extraordinary, a life that’s become normal or (shudder) boring. I know this sounds forlorn, for people who are accustomed to see me as a buoyant person, for people who read my blogs to ease the tension of their life (Yeah, that’s just you Bidisha and sorry couldn’t upload the image today too as the tool I use is down)

When I think about it, it seems more like powerlessness than angst. Powerless to change things, Powerless to accept the change in me, Powerless to stop changes. I know I have changed, somewhere inside. I, who believed in control, am losing it like the proverbial rolling stone. Complications that are not needed are arising from the depths of psyche, like monsters of hell.

Why is it that I wish I was someplace else? Why is it that I wish I was I in a different set of time and space continums where things that I want changed are not there and everything I cherish is there. Wish things were different, people were different, and choices to make were different. Put me in a black and white world where there are no excruciatingly maddening shades of grey. Where things are simple, where I can make the decisions I want to make without the infuriating circumstances…..

Till then I am here, in a world painted by a schizophrenic on a canvas of psychosis, waiting for a clearer sky, waiting for a sign……or just plain waiting.

if i don't have time for you....dont blame me, blame sp2

[ if anything can go wrong it will - murphy's law ]

well, did not understand a word of the title? This is the new single thats topping the charts at the office. SP2 a.k.a Service Pack 2 for Windows XP has not only become what we feared it would, but also in a scale which we the unsuspecting Tech Leads never imagined. I can understand the frustration of the guy who screamed "Oh, Why on #@@** earth should a Service Pack cause more problems than the OS????" My feelings exactly, pal!

have you noticed that I ramble more about work than me these days? Thats what working in an environment with the air so heavy with tension that you can cut it, does to you! One advice to people, especially out-of-college techies (Maaaan, I use the word like I am a veteran whereas I was one of those species hardly a year and half ago!!) guys, go to the mountains and become a hermit or beter still start your own firm!

the only sources of inspiration and laughter has been Dilbert and Forwarded mails (Thanks, Scott Adams for the first and Pavi and Argan for the second, Dunno what I would do without you guys!!)