I'll prefer to fly and crash than to snubble and sleep.

Rahman-o-Mania in Sydney ! - 2

noreply@blogger.com (ranjit nair) — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 12:03:00 +0000

Rahman-o-Mania in Sydney ! - 1

noreply@blogger.com (ranjit nair) — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 11:43:00 +0000

Let the world win - The OZ problem.

noreply@blogger.com (ranjit nair) — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 13:45:00 +0000

Our external affairs minister perhaps almost got to the root of the Ind-Aus problem when he asked a serious question the other day.'Why do our students go to Australia for frivolous courses like facial/hairstyling ? They can be done here in India a lot better.'

I am in Australia on work at a time when both Countries & countrymen are seriously looking at each other & trading a barrage of comments everyday, often through a haplessly TRP crazy Indian media.I had a very lively discussion on this issue with some of my permanent Australian resident friends who got here about 6 years back as students & then settled for good in OZ land.

Coming back to the facial/hairstyling thing,the big idea is this. No one who comes here for a facial/hairstyling course comes do learn the tricks of this trade. He comes with a bigger motive - Settling down in Australia. A liberal PR path that most of the western nations lack makes OZ a big attraction for Indians. And once one person of the family makes his way here, a lot more follow. So where does the problem lie ? The problem lies in what I call the 'law of increasing numbers'. When the number of people engaged in a particular activity shoots over the roof,quality of ppl doing it automatically comes down. It happened with Indian IT,it's happening with OZ migration. My friend remembers the few Indian classmates he used to have when he joined college here. They were smart & classy.They knew the big idea 'When in Rome,do as the Romans do'. The crowd that comes in today doesn't even know where Rome is.

I have not traveled to Melbourne yet, but that's the place most of the incidents occurring are being reported from. And the victims are more students than working Indians.One of my friends frequently travels to Melbourne & he told me that he was amazed at the sheer number of Indians in Melbourne, a figure that's increasing every day. And he was amazed at the way most of them behave in public places - 'Paaji,tussi kaise ho !!!!!! ' goes a guy in full pitch at a public park. He tells me that when he had come in, he doesn't even remember speaking to anyone in the first 4-5 months,anxious to learn the new culture & their ways before committing anything stupid.

Australia is a far liberal nation than India,even America for that matter. And to see problems in Australia with the same prism as we see problems in India is not correct. And perhaps it's this liberalism & openness to various cultures which leads to such a PR regime here. I do agree that any country encouraging migration should also think about ways to integrate them into the mainstream culture. Australia does this in a pretty nice way,the ongoing Sydney festival in which A R Rahman too is staging a concert is a testimony to this. But then there are limits to what a Country/Govt can do, especially in a bad economy. Historically crimes have always increased during a recession. Indian media would do a lot good if it also projected incidents like this & this when airing news.

It's a fact that crimes rates are high in cities these days & it's important that people irrespective of nationalities take care & precaution.If we ensure in most Indian cities that girls & kids who are easy targets of violence are not alone at night on the road,we have to do a bit of the same for ourselves when abroad.I agree that India is a developing nation, but then we shouldn't expect the western world to be picture perfect to the last pixel.
At the same time, while trying to assimilate into the melting pot in a foreign land , it's important that we adjust ourselves to their culture, their way of dressing & quite figuratively,start speaking their language in whatever we do. If hatred can grow in Marathis seeing lot of Indians working & flourishing in Mumbai, the same rules might apply for a section of ppl in alien lands. Remember, we as Indians have to aid & contribute to the growth & flourishment of other cultures, not make them change to our own.

I always wondered while I was in India, why the older Ind residents in Aus never came out in support of the students who were demonstrating. I asked my friends this question & had to agree with his response to some extent. All that is going around is becoming hugely detrimental to the Indian community here. Except for the students, almost everyone would suffer. My friend's marriage is a big question now cos no Dad wants to send his daughter to Sydney,Melbourne.The fact notwithstanding that both cities have consistently ranked in Economist mag's top 10 cities in the world. Even the married ones are not happy. Things are not the same when they call back home,everyone's worried though not much has changed for them in day to day life. Less people coming to Australia from India would mean bad business for Indians who run Indian restaurants/groceries & other India centric businesses abroad.

To conclude, we all (Indian media included)have to understand that in the new century, if someone has to win, it's the World.And I mean the world together.Not India, not Australia, not America,not China. India needs to give the world it's rich learnings in understanding life & the world needs to give India the methodologies it invented to take life to the next level. Let's collectively sit,identify & solve problems that are cropping up in this age of globalisation & migration across continents.

Let the world win !

My dreams for my country :)

noreply@blogger.com (ranjit nair) — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 09:45:00 +0000

I am 26 now.I guess it's kind of a right age to look a bit more into the future of my country. So I thought I'll pen down some things that I would love to see changed when I am 50, that's some 25 years from now.

Ok, first the caveat :) This post would be largely urban in nature.That means that it won't cover my dream for the rural masses of my country.That's a subject I would like to tackle in an altogether different post. So all those ppl who want to say that it is not 'all inclusive', well...it is not meant to be so :). So relax & read.

My first dream starts from an Airport. Cos that's one place I have been frequenting too much in the last couple of years.And most of them across continents,North America, Europe, Australia & Asia. In 25 years I dream that most of the people who would be seated in the business class & first class lounges should be Indian. When the first call from the airline comes for priority boarding for business class passengers, I want to see most of the Indians getting into the plane. It sounds very simple an idea, but think about it & you'll get a bigger picture.

I would like to see our cities becoming more friendly to people living in it. In short I want to see at least a couple of our cities getting into the Economist magazine's top 10 liveable cities list. If I could dream a bit more, I'll love to see at least 5 brand new world class cities being created from scratch, with lots of parks, lots of libraries, strict building regulations,great city services like water,drainage etc, efficient public transportation & yes,ones that are more child & pedestrian friendly.

I dream of the air becoming more breathable in our cities. India going ahead & accepting for itself stricter regulations than that being proposed by the world for climate change. A separate efficient govt body to regulate & monitor carbon emissions & companies themselves becoming more conscious about carbon. Why, I would also love to see Indian firms selling carbon credits to other nations !

25 years down the lane, I want to live in an Indian city where I can fearlessly open any tap in my house and gulp down the water to quench my thirst. I want to live in a city where I can throw open all my windows & sleep peacefully without the fear of robbers or mosquitoes.

The list can be endless of course, but then dreams have to end & one has to wake up :) So the last one would be to see all my country men leave office sharp at 5 every day to get to enjoy their time with their families. I want to see working moms & dads playing with their kids when I take out a jog in the evening around 6. I want to see working families going for weekend holidays & spending time with each other, cracking jokes & of course dreaming about a still better, still prosperous India.

Desire to serve.

noreply@blogger.com (ranjit nair) — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 14:47:00 +0000

I recently happened to visit the Railway reservation counter to get a 'Tatkal' ticket. For people who don't know, 'Tatkal' is a system of ticketing in which tickets can be obtained for a journey just 5 days before the travel by paying a higher premium.The 'normal' railway tickets in India usually get over lot earlier.

The 'Tatkal' system works quite efficiently. The booking starts sharp at 8 AM nationwide at booking counters and normally tickets get over by 8.10/8.15 AM.

My visit was to the booking counter at Alappuzha, a town in central Kerala.Fresh from my US visit and anticipating a huge crowd, I was dot on my timelines. Ireached the counter by 7 AM only to be greeted by closed gates of the building. But as I had guessed, soon about 50 people joined the queue behind those closed gates. I had nothing to worry as I was still standing first in the supposedly FIFO queue.Or so I thought.

The gates opened around 7.50 and before I even got ready to make a move into the building, almost everyone behind me was gone ! Yes, they were all running into the building in what was supposedly the 'next queue' ...this one, the more real one - The one at the booking counter itself. I suddenly realised the heightened necessity to unlearn a lot of my recent learnings in the US. And the need to do that a lot faster.

It was almost sure that I won't get a ticket for my journey this time as almost 30 ppl were in front of me.A processing time of 1 min per person would make it 30 mins.But then I had nothing better to do going back home, so I gave it a try. And stood there 31st in the queue, alert of course at what's happening around me this time around.

The person responsible for issuing those tickets came in at 7.55. A young chap in his early twenties.He went inside , booted up the computer and readied himself for the task that was to start in the next 5 mins.

The clock struck 8 and I saw something very strange happening.The guy's turnaround time for each person was less than 10 seconds.I was getting amazed at the speed , in fact a bit jealous as I was damn sure that I could ne'er manage to operate a computer faster than that.I reached the counter before 8.04 and told my destination, date of journey and handed the booking request slip with my name on it. As I began to take out the cash, he was already asking the next guy his destination. And that's when the whole big idea struck me !

He was not taking money at all. He was just putting a block on the tickets and asking the person to move out of the queue so that he can block tickets for the next guy. You should have seen the sheer speed of his operating the computer, he had done the job even before you could complete telling the date of your journey.

The entire crowd was served in under 10 minutes.That was the need of the hour too as the tickets would have gotten over in another 5 mins anyways.

Then he started slowly calling out each person & started printing tickets one by one after taking cash at leisure. Brilliant ! I couldn't but marvel at his desire to serve and the method with which he optimised the entire process. The 'tatkal' system itself was devised as a process improvement method coupled with the idea of eliminating brokers/middlemen by having a uniform 8 AM reservation system.But needless to say, when sound processes get coupled with efficient people, results can be awesome.

I have to admit here that it's also a little bit of Indian ingenuity. It's very difficult to imagine such a thing happening anywhere else in the world.

Sharing my experiences !

noreply@blogger.com (ranjit nair) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 15:35:00 +0000

There are few things as humbling as speaking at your own Alma mater.
Here speaking at the same seminar hall where I used to sit and listen to speakers about 5 years ago.A fulfilling experience.

Brilliant use of lathe - 800 years ago !

noreply@blogger.com (ranjit nair) — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 15:13:00 +0000

Lathe carved pillars at the Somnathpura temple, about 30 kms from Mysore. A temple with very different architecture.

A subtle thing about leadership.

noreply@blogger.com (ranjit nair) — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 14:22:00 +0000

There is this strange thing about leadership which I am experiencing first hand over some time now.Whenever someone becomes a leader or assumes a leadership role, he unconsciously moves into an orbit that's one notch higher than that of his followers.

This normally helps the leader in gaining a natural psychological edge over his followers thus helping him/her a lot in creating a dedicated team that seeks to understand & follow the leader. But in the process it also creates a line of separation that gets increasing difficult to erase as days pass by.

You can see this happening almost everywhere. Take the armed forces/police as an example.It almost creates a line of separation between the ranks as a part of the process. It helps in having a strong command over lower ranks but it is highly detrimental when it comes to helping the officer in understanding the problems faced by his juniors.

Take a school/college. The staff seldom use the same facilities as that of the students. Be it buses or washrooms. Most of them even have a staff canteen thus essentially shielding them from the problems that they are supposed to fix.

No better example than politicians. The surface transport minister gets the traffic cleared whenever he moves. He is in a different league & so miseries of normal people on the road becomes increasingly difficult for him to grasp.

A software firm is no exception. Except for the non-routine team meet,you'll seldom find a senior executive dining with his juniors as a practice. Everyone prefers to move around in crowds that's his or her own league. Even if there is that exceptional leader who actually makes a conscious effort to break the routine, it's highly possible that the conversations that takes place in his presence are very different from the ones that would have taken place in his absence.

It's a very fine balancing act.Once you get higher credentials, it's very difficult to maintain your feet at the same level as those of the people you lead. And unless you do that, it might actually be difficult to know their real issues and problems. The saddest thing is that it's actually the leader who is mostly empowered to make a change to fix those issues.More so in a highly hierarchical society like India.

I got a feel of this firsthand when I went to take a short session for my juniors in college recently. The look on their faces told me that they were all highly inquisitive about what actually happens in the Industry. I was just left wondering at the end of the day whether I would have done a better job if I had been just another student amongst them and talked impromptu one fine day.It took me a lot of effort to make them realise that I was just another guy as them and they need not look upto me as a 'Senior' who passed out of the college a while back. Though I did manage to do a decent job at the session, my doubts were best confirmed by the use of 'Sir' to address me by almost all of them till the end of the program :)

Of Indian IT Industry - Part 3

noreply@blogger.com (ranjit nair) — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 23:17:00 +0000

Part 1 , Part 2 .

Over the last few weeks, the world witnessed the crisis at India's 4th major Outsourcer. As I write this, I am happy that in the revival efforts, the new management has got at least it's basics right. As I stressed in Part 2, Indian IT is about it's ppl, the technical talent. If you loose your workhorses, then well no amount of polishing your cart is going to get you anywhere.

But as the events unfolded , It was interesting to say the least, how lot of varied entities reacted to it. I would try to make my understanding of the issue & reaction through some analogies below. Not an expert at these complex money manipulation things, but yes my 2 cents :) Go figure out the analogies if you can.

Analogy 1 : The issue , big deal for the company - really ?

There lived a happy family. Father, mom and 50 (k) kids in Agra. Kids worked serving foreign tourists in and around the Taj & naturally earned in dollars. Dutiful kids used to give over the entire dollar amount to mom for expenses & mom in turn used to give what was enough (or what she thought was enough) for the kids to show off to other kids in the neighbourhood that they were better off. (All kids in the neighbourhood too were tourist guides you see). Now Mom used to manage the house expenses brilliantly & saved quite a huge amount every month. She used to put all the money in a piggy bank and kept it safe in the loft of the house & yes , as is natural in Indian households, left the key with her husband. Now, the husband was a saint, or at least people in the neighbourhood thought so of him. Highly respected guy. He told everyone how strong his wife & kids were with finances that he ne'er had to do any work himself and could just boss around.So things were going just cool as mom ne'er used to touch the piggy bank. Actually she had no idea why she was saving in the first place as she ne'er needed the money , the cash flow from the kids was so good every month that she couldn't imagine when she would need the money. But since saving is good in our culture & every big family in the neighbourhood seemed to do it, she too did.

And then it happened one day. Husband vanishes leaving behind a letter saying that he doesn't know where is family is going. There is actually no piggy bank at home & I was actually feeding the boys with my money all this time. Can't do that anymore, I am off. Vroom @!

Neighbours went shell shocked, kids were devastated & mom really had no clue what was happening around. She knew the piggy was there, she also knew she ne'er told the kids the reality as she thought they were too small to know all this.But she also thought there was actually no problem as she ne'er touched the piggy anytime. But hey, who was listening. She had the kids to go to work everyday and they would just do fine.

The media reaction :

Oh my god, what happened ! How could the saint take me, the self declared guardian of the Indian society for a ride, No way. I am going to give it back in full measure. And moreover I am the one who has the sole right to create sensations by 'breaking' news. I can't take it anymore when someone tries to get ahead of me in that by writting a letter . Be him a saint or a blogger.

So he goes...
1.The chaiwallah near Taj ('who refused to be named') said the saint was always like this. Never to be trusted....Blah blah
2. 'Unidentified Sources' said it's very difficult for the family to survive, they actually lived their day with the help of the piggy, I don't know if they can eat this month's food with the piggy gone.
3. 'Unconfirmed' taxiwallahs near the Taj said the game is all over for the kids now. They have no idea how things will shape up.
4. And yep, the Indian blogosphere is not to be left far far behind. I was the self declared intelligentsia, he could have taken the entire world for a ride , not me ! So here I go .... ' The whole family should either commit suicide or consider selling off the kids one by one to neighbours, or yep better , the mom should get re-married. That would for sure solve everything.Period.

On Competitor reaction:

One neighbouring family which as a matter of principle never used to drive a car, but only 'drive on values' said.... Oh we are not going to get the family...tainted folks. (It's worth noting that they both shared the same room when they went to the temple festival last year). And yes, you know what - The kids ne'er used to make any money in real, they just went to the Taj, roam around when our kids worked and returned home empty handed. All this thing about kids giving money to mom & saving in a piggy is just crap. We always knew 'it. After all we are not the self declared morale keepers of the 'tourist guides' association for free.

As with any industry in the world, the true maturity of the Industry, the company & the supporting environment (read the media , the govt and other stakeholders) would be reflected only in the time of crisis. The problem with Indian IT has always been a little effort-high return business environment, the moment that started falling apart, the rot is coming out for everyone to see especially like kids fighting for the broken coconut in Vinayaka temple.

Life is indeed like a high speed race most of times. But when you see that the guy in the track next to you has hit a stone and falls down bleeding, it's upto you to set the priorities...you either take him to the hospital , or decide to run ahead to finish the race & claim the trophy. Or like many others, stand near the fallen guy and watch to say ' I won't take out anything voluntarily from him, but if the blackberry falls down from his pocket, Ah well, I can' help running away with it.

My Southwest Experience.

noreply@blogger.com (ranjit nair) — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 02:05:00 +0000

I had wanted to fly SouthWest Airlines at least once before I left the US. The reason had more to do with their famous philosophy of putting Employees first & customers second, which I too greatly believe in. A happy employee community would naturally in turn take care of your customers. I had also read unconfirmed reports that they actually disallowed a customer from flying once for treating their employee shabbily.

The difference in experience started from the check-in itself when they asked everyone to stand in a queue based on the numbers on their boarding passes. I couldn't make out anything from that except that it regulated the crowd a bit and allowed them to segregate passengers which helped in giving instructions. You have to note here that SW doesn't have seat numbers assigned to individual passengers. You can sit wherever you want (As long as no one else is seated there of course !)

The drama then started when they started making fun of other airlines by actually asking on the PA system to keep credit cards ready as they serve peanutes (SW doesn't charge for snacks or check in baggages). The whole announcement of safety precautions was done in a very interesting fashion and not the usual dull manner which might have bored out the frequent business travellers. A lot of the Airlines seem to have adopted this practice of late, I have come across quite of few recently.

The cabin crew was very jovial and it reflected their genuine interest in the job. Mid way across the flight, to everyone's surprise, the crew got along together to organise games ! The first game started with asking people to jot down the names of American states that have the same first alphabet for the state & state capital. (like Indiana, Indianpolis). That was fun , the guy next to me got all of them right.

The next game was of course gambling, considering the flight was headed Vegas. All of them taking part had to put a dollar with their seat # into a bag and pass it onto the crew. They would then pick a lucky passenger and he gets the entire loot. One guy from my team made it this time.

And then the best of it, for the ladies. All ladies were asked to take out their lipsticks & give their best smooches ! Naah, not to their co-passengers as I was expecting ( I had a great looking lady near me),but to the napkin passed along with the peanuts. The crew collected the napkins and then, the pilot judged the 'best lips in the plane'.

The way the crew kept occupied everyone made sure the 4 hour long flight looked like a 30 min one. It makes so much difference in productivity when employees have fun on the job. Ah forgot to mention the final trick they played when we landed in Las Vegas - ' Hello everyone, the temperature outside is 42 degrees with slight rain, Thank you for flying with SouthWest , we wish you a great stay in Bahamas :) '

Le Reve, Las Vegas : Highly recommended.

noreply@blogger.com (ranjit nair) — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 23:09:00 +0000

Le Reve stands for 'the dream' in french & is the name of a production show in one of the hotels in Las Vegas. More details here. A stunning display of acrobatics, aquatics, and art with repeated displays of limits in human endurance, Le Reve I believe is a must watch in a lifetime.

The entire stage for the show is actually a huge swimming pool which is almost 60 feet deep with hydraulic movements for different stages that pop up out of the pool. So if you ever head to Las Vegas for a vacation, don't forget to catch this one at the Wynn hotel. It's a bit provocatively priced at about 150 $ for a ticket and it took a lot of convincing on my part to push my friends for it.But once out of the show, none of them could stop from being overwhelmed by the sheer experience of it. You can of course check out some youtube videos of the show. The theme is a bit vague with the undefined dreams of a young girl taking shape one after the other, but the sheer amount of work that goes behind each feat in the show is just amazing. I was first left gaping at seeing people dropping from almost 100 feet in the air into the pool only to later discover that some of the performers were actually Olympians ! True to what the Ads say, it really seemed like a dream with my eyes open when it got over.

This show also gives a nice insight on the kind of scale that a determined human effort can achieve even if it's just for entertainment. Las Vegas itself of course is an altogether different story in scale, both hotels & businesses that surround them.

Stay Warm !

noreply@blogger.com (ranjit nair) — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 03:06:00 +0000

I never liked being around in places where temperatures don't show the decency of sticking above a particular threshold. My first brush with a 'real' winter was when I was in Orissa. I was a kid then and had lived all my life in Chennai until that point. I wasn't particularly liking the frenzy with which my parents were accumulating those black blankets. I hated the very sight of those rough ,artless piece of clothing, sleeping in them for an entire night was a scary thought back then. But then I had to and I lived successfully through the ordeal. And that was my first encounted with real cold climes...not to mention that the temperature rarily went below 10 C anywhere in Orissa.

Then came Munnar, where I studied, and survived four long winters. Though the place is in the state of Kerala, it's climate doesn't even remotely resemble the Kerala weather due to it's altitude. The fact that most of the houses there had a good component of wood in them didn't help things much. The worst thing obviously was the need to get up early mornings to head for studies.

Temperatures did use to go upto 5 degrees C there and at times touch an yearly low of zero. But not any further than that.

And then came America. As I write this today, temperature outside is a punishing minus 25 C , yep that's right, a good 25 degrees down under the freezing point. Thermals, tough gloves and layers of clothing become the order of the day. The heating system is the lone saviour which keeps you sane. If some bunny gives me an argument 'there's no power cut in America' as a potent reason to migrate here from India, I now know how to defend that. Ah well, if there were power cuts, there wouldn't have been many ppl left in most parts of this country.

As I leave starbucks after a cup of hot coffee, the greeting that's thrown at me doesn't amuse anymore... 'Stay Warm !'.

The .303 Problem.

noreply@blogger.com (ranjit nair) — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 22:28:00 +0000

.303 is the name of the work horse of Indian Police services. It's a rifle that has been in service since the British Raj. If you are too particular about the dates, then 1880 it was , when the Rifle actually shipped out of it's factories. So for the last 128 years, the .303 Rifle has been untiringly rendering it's service in almost all the police forces in our country (State police forces) without exception. The paramilitary forces too used it as it's primary weapon till as late as 2001 when finally it's was firmly phased out in favour of the SLR (Self Loading Rifle, a 1950's product) during the tenure of Home secretary Kamal Pandey. But it's not as bad as it all sounds cos even though it's old, it's a very effective weapon with a fair degree of stopping power. And better, most of our policemen are actually trained on the .303 , so that ends up making it one of the most effective weapons in their hands when an 'aimed firing' need arises. The .303 did even prove it's mettle in the Parliament attacks in 2001.

But times & circumstances have changed a lot since 2001. And the present era calls for a huge spending towards modernisation of our Police forces. And of course, a systematic de-coupling of the police-politician nexus.

We as a nation have some of the best elite forces in the whole world , as proved in Mumbai. They are amongst the most intensively trained for sure. But as Mumbai again proved, the first line of defence in our system is always invariably the state police forces. And we saw heartening scenes when the brave Mumbai police jawans devoid of bullet proof jackets took on the terrorists with their .303's. It also proved systemic failures when the elite forces took more than acceptable time to reach the scene of crime. Also , we shouldn't forget that the most adopted terror tactic against our nation has been bombs dropped in trash cans, Mumbai was a new form which might not repeat itself again.

India today pays Trillions of rupees in taxes every year.We definitely have money to upgrade out on security. The political will hopefully will come now. As for upgradation of the .303, the most common excuse given is that an Automatic weapon in the hands of a routine beat policeman is too dangerous, for the unfortunate event of him becoming hostile, the risk would run high. It's a classic example of not attacking the root cause of the problem.

The average police constable doesn't live too comfortable a life if he belongs to the non 'Chai-pani' cadre. Having personally seen the lifestyle of the lowest rung of our forces, I am not usually surprised when I hear stories of Indian policemen going hostile against their own comrades. The problems are almost the same as the other low income Indian families. Daily family issues, Childrens quality education, daughters wedding, supporting parents back home etc.. Now add to that 12 hour work shifts, routine denial of eligible leave , no tolerance for revolt, punishment codes and strict disciplinary actions.

The mordernisation of out State police forces have to start from the bottom. Govt housing has to be ensured for all, creation of Police schools on the lines of Army schools, subsidized ration/groceries, counselling services,strict 8 hour workshifts, subsidized personal loans etc.. might be a good idea to start with. The point being , a constable who is adequately rested with lot less worries back home would be infinetely more effective than someone who is refused to go home to attend his sister's marriage and yes, lot less dangerous when he is armed while on duty. It is when we meet & solve this fundamental issues with our police forces that we can actually go and mordernise the .303's with AK 47's and Mp5 machine guns without any fear. Another important aspect is the working condition. Police stations should be equipped with technology. Special vehicles should be custom made for Chase operations. And all policemen on duty should be available on the radio.

One might ask, how in the world would these things help when most of the police force in our country is inherently corrupt. My answer is simple - No human being is bad by birth. It's circumstances that exist in our society today that makes us bad/corrupt/unethical. Lets change the fundamentals, we have got them wrong. And let's see if that brings about an attitudinal shift in the system. That's the best hope we can have today.It also comes from close observation of the system. An armed policemen is almost often never seen accepting bribes. I feel it's due to mere sense of ownership that comes automatically when a task demanding some responsibility is assgined to you. So when we create an ecosystem wherein we have a lot less stressed policemen on the street, armed, on the radio recieving intelligence, with a happy family back home, a financially sound bank account, a well equipped work place to head back to, I personally feel we would have created a very strong first line of defence. And that might make all the difference in most of the cases.

The right mix of Tolerance/Intolerance.

noreply@blogger.com (ranjit nair) — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 04:00:00 +0000

For years now, we as a country have messed up with our priorities of Tolerance & Intolerance. The Mumbai episode should be the wake up call to shun those practices & correct the indifference.

Tolerance : It was not even a week before the attacks that Raj Thackeray was making people of Mumbai fight with each other in the name of linguistic differences. Where is he now? Haven't seen him out of his house since.
Take a close look at our society & we can sense how fragmented it is. Hindus have intolerance for Muslims & vice versa. Go to Tamil Nadu & you can see intolerance for Hindi speaking people. Go to North India and 'Madrasis' are seldom tolerated. Go to Orissa & Christians are being burnt alive.
We as a country have seriously mastered the art of dividing ourselves into smaller & smaller groups that we essentially have forgotten our Nation. It's a classic example of how we are left counting the trees when the forest itself is on fire. I strongly feel that this attitude of us Indians cannot & should not go on if we are to go anywhere as a Nation. We are one country...agreed with lots of cultural,linguistic & religious variations. But this aspect should be our greatest strength, not our most exploited weakness. As my brother said, the perfect example is Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan, A MALAYALI who lived in BANGALORE & got trained in PUNE, serving the BIHAR regiment, deputed to NSG in MANESAR, HARYANA laid down his life defending the nation in MUMBAI,MAHARASHTRA.This is India. Not the one that people like Raj Thackeray envision.

Intolerance : Time for a greater intolerance of course against the political class. India is a democracy and it has to be one for it's entire life & not just for the 3-4 months that we go to elections every five years. The 'post emergency period India' quietly took on itself whatever was fed to it. We don't need to do that. It's high time we all showed intolerance to the class of people who behave as self declared dictators once they get into power.
Another thought is the urgent need to walk into politics ourselves. If young India today wants change, then it's high time we made a serious thought about politics as a career. No one is going to change things for us if we don't do it ourselves. If the best career options remain the high paying corporates, then it shouldn't surprise us that the best & the brightest are heading there. If good people don't get into politics, bad people surely will. We need people who are more approachable with people's problems. A good leader should always know the pulse of the people he leads like the back of his hand. Our politicians have long forgotten that piece of Art.

'Head fake' by John Wood !

noreply@blogger.com (ranjit nair) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 02:18:00 +0000

I just finished reading the book 'Leaving Microsoft to change the world' by John Wood. John was the Director of Marketing at Microsoft handling the Asia-pac region & used to report to Steve Ballmer. The book his about his life story of leaving Microsoft to create 'Room to read' , a 'not for profit' institution which builds libraries, schools & computer/language labs in countries like Nepal,India,Cambodia,Sri lanka etc. A classic book for anyone who nurtures an ambition of creating some change in the world.

John , a Kellogg grad, had the typical high flying life at MS and travelling across the world marketing it's software products. It all seemed to start when he took a conscious break to hike in the Himalayas to get out of his routine. A chance visit to a school library while in Nepal changes his life forever. He saw that a school with almost 400 kids didn't have proper books to read , leave alone a decent library. As he was leaving , the headmaster of the school left him with the words 'Perhaps sir, someday you will return with books' . What follows is an amazing story about how he built 'Room to read' from scratch and how it today stands tall with thousands of schools & libraries across the world to it's credit.

If you have read Randy pausch's 'The last lecture' (Another must read in a lifetime, be prepared to break down into tears towards the end ) or listened to his lecture, you would know what an 'Head fake' is . John has perfected the art intentionally or by pure coincidence through his book. Though it's his own life story, it takes you through by teaching business management, leadership skills, start-up gyaan & tons of fund raising techniques for non profits.

Two instances from the book that I liked the most : The first one is about Ballmer. John used to report to Ballmer and he casually mentions about running for the Boston marathon to him during an early morning jog together in Sydney. Several weeks later , during a conference Ballmer stops by him to congratulate him on his timing in the run .Better , Ballmer remembers the exact time that he clocked. A gem of wisdom for leaders there I felt . If you forget the people who work for you , sooner or later you would be going nowhere . And if you honestly care about them & let them know that you do in instances like these , you have already built the first few blocks of a successful team.

Another beautiful example amongst the several fund raising methods he mentions (that he came across throughout the world) is about some school kids in UK who raised money for his organisation during the 2004 tsunami. The kids were supposedly too small to do anything on their own and so devised a real cute plan with the help of their teachers. They went home and told their parents that they wanted to help out tsunami victims and for fundraising they would be giving their parents a deal. Parents can buy 1 hour of their silence @ home for 10 pounds ! No prizes for guessing how much money the kids roped in :)

Hodo-hodo zoku !

noreply@blogger.com (ranjit nair) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 01:30:00 +0000

Couple of weeks back, the Wall street journal had a very interesting report on a new pattern emerging in Japan - that of employees refusing career growth/promotions. They are called the so-so folks or 'Hodo-hodo zoku'. The larger issue at hand is that it's not a section of the Japanese youth who display this symptom, but an entire generation. The article even describes instances wherein bosses were afraid to break promotion news to their reportees.

Nothing to be too surprised though. Perhaps just signs of a well developed nation. Japan has obviously passed the initial phase in the development of a nation in which India finds itself today. Long work hours, a strong work ethic, growth ambitions etc are of course the hallmark of a society which wants to get out of the state it currently is in. But once it achieves these goals, it's but human to think about a more emotionally fulfilling lifestyle.

If you tell this story to anyone in India today, it might as well elicit a strong giggle. But what exactly is the holy grail of work life. Once into the rat race , one is not going to get out anyways, the system has taken care of that. Only people with real strong drive and determination have managed to exit the vicious circle and attain 'nirvana' if I could loosely use the word.

So perhaps the young Japanese are finally discovering the 'right' & 'easy' way to live life. Spending a good amount of time with family & loved ones (which would obviously come at a cost to money & career) would of course be more fulfilling way to live , at least for a good amount of the generation. Their forefathers have sweated it out, built a great nation. Let the current generation cherish it ! There's always the next generation to sweat it out again in case things get too much out of hand ...but then life won't go uncherished !

The joy of NOT seeing money !

noreply@blogger.com (ranjit nair) — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 22:45:00 +0000

No, if you are expecting the good news that I have been laid off..Ah well, not yet !

This is all about a small experiment that I carried out recently to check how many days pass from in my life without seeing a currency note physically. Money, I agree is important in life and it's not everybody who gets real good at making tons of it. As for me, I have somehow always hated the currency form of money.It has always symbolized hatred & greed whenever I look at it, the inspiring pic of Mahatma on Indian notes not withstanding. Hence I decided to try out this experiment in the US to see how many days go without a meeting with the 'note'. I had also decided that I would make no voluntary effort from my side to avoid 'the note'.

And the answer is 33 ! Yep, I sailed through 33 days in the US without getting to have a look at a currency note ! And believe me , the stint could have been far longer had not it been for my friend who decided to return some borrowed money in cash avoiding the usual cheque route.

That also shows the penetration of plastic money in the US. There are very very few places which insist on cash these days & most of the encounters needing cash would have been actually aided by a broken card swipe machine. Another aspect which I came about is that I feel a lot less stressed/concerned about money when I transact the electronic route. It's strange but true. When you don't see the actually currency going from your hand, the inherent sadness/stress associated with parting with our money seems to get reduced.

Added to this is another aspect of an higher valued currency. You get a meal for 5 $ , a good amount of daily utility stuff is priced between 2-5 $ . Though the absolute value of the good remains the same,again I feel the stress associated with spending is getting reduced due to the value of the currency.

There are two things to be noted in this observation. The actual feeling might also reflect the character of the person. I might actually be stingy to think about the inherent sadness associated with spending money. On the other hand, for someone else, spending 5 lakhs and acquring a car might be far more empowering than buying a car for 10,000 $ . Absolute value being the same in both cases. The second aspect is that this rule might apply only to people who criss-cross international boundaries and transact off and on in different currencies.

Have a used Cell phone ?

noreply@blogger.com (ranjit nair) — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 03:18:00 +0000

If you live in the United States & have an used cell phone which you are planning to dispose off, please read the below message , follow the instructions & send the phone to 'Schools for India', a registered 501c3 Non profit organization .You don't need to pay the postage, 'Schools for India' would do the needful. Your humble contribution would go towards an ambitious cause of building world class schools in rural India. Thank you.

Schools for India - Upload a Document to Scribd

Litlle things ...

noreply@blogger.com (ranjit nair) — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 03:18:00 +0000

That make life in America easier !

In the last one year, I have come across numerous instances of how little thought processes applied by someone makes life a lot easier in America.
The first one was of course the small instrument to wash dishes. I had always used a brush and soap powder/soap detergent to wash my dishes. (Don't get the impression that I used to cook regularly in India, once in a while that is ) . On the occasional trips home, I had seen my mom using liquid soap. Fare enough, but still the same tech - Dip the brush in liquid & wash. That's the reason why I was amused to see a small instrument with a pipe like container attached to the brush being used in most American kitchens (When they don't use the dishwasher that is). The container was filled with the liquid of course.That was kind of cool to me, as it saved a lot of effort on my side. My first couple of months of Onsite assignment@ home was purely dishwashing, as I had already proved my cooking skills in 2 days. This thing helped in 2 ways to reduce effort. The need to dip brush in liquid repeatedly was eliminated & I got a huge pipe to hold on too.

The next one is from a low cost supermarket chain called 'Aldi'. They have a real nice business model - No carry bags, no heavily branded goods,no credit cards...In all everything that keeps costs low. In fact, lower than Walmart most of the times. Obviously this also means lower number of staff on premises. It's pretty routine to see a single person manning the entire supermarket and still doing everything efficiently. One routine task at big supermarkets in US is to collect back trolleys/shopping carts from the parking lot & get them back to store. Some 'smarter' shops out rightly ban them from parking lots. I was amused at how folks at Aldi got around it. They used a coin operated trolley. The design is quite simple. You have to insert a quarter (25 cents) into a slot on the trolley to get it released from it's stack. The coin stays in the trolley when you shop and when you offload stuff into your car.The catch : the coin will come out of the slot only when you replace the trolley back to where you pulled it out from. The system is very neat and it's a nice sight to see all carts arranged neatly at the store all the time. No human intervention needed. Money works !

Next is the nice method to post and deliver letters/parcels. Right from stamps that you can print straight from the postal dept website on payment through credit card to the nice delivery mechanisms that work..the system is quite appreciable. Most of the letter boxes at homes have a red colored flag that you can raise in case you want to send something out. So posting becomes as simple as putting stuff in your own letter box at home and raising the flag. Yep, in case you haven't guessed, the letter boxes don't have keys.
And in places where they have keys, they have a collection box like we have in India. In apartment complexes they keep some common drop boxes for incoming parcels.In case you get a parcel, they would lock up the parcel in the box and drop the key in your mailbox. You can unlock the box and get your parcel, the key stays put in the lock ! Simple idea !

Such small systems are in place everywhere and believe me they make life a lot easier. I remember one incident at the Airport when my friend reported at the check-in desk only to realise that he didn't bring in something seemingly important - The ticket ! (Now you know why he is my friend !@ ) I can't imagine what would have happened if it was in India, but the lady at the counter said.. 'No problem, we will work a way out'. She asked him if he had any valid photo id. He gave the Driver's license and that did the job. She tracked him out of the list of passengers on the flight and gave him his boarding pass. Now remember that he didn't use the driving license anywhere in the process of booking the ticket. I am not sure if she just checked his name on the card since driving license is good enough identification for anyone in the US. But the system in place is what makes the act foolproof. Each credit card used to book the ticket is linked to an SSN number and every driving license too is linked to the SSN number. I assume the system went deep enough and showed her the authenticity. But even if it didn't..well, it worked !

FailCamp '08 Chennai 16th November

noreply@blogger.com (ranjit nair) — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 02:49:00 +0000

The Knowledge foundation is organizing it's next event in Chennai. A 1 day unconference which would see people joining to share , yep, their 'failures'. A true believer that nothing teaches more than a failure, I am going to 'fail' in attending the event :). Learning from our own failures can be costly at times , the shortcut of course is to learn from others failures. And yep, share our own so that others don't repeat them.If you are in Chennai & have a great story of your failure & learning to share, this is the place to go. Check out the wiki and enroll , seats limited !

Google ? ...Naah... Youtube !

noreply@blogger.com (ranjit nair) — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 01:20:00 +0000

These days when I need to search something on the internet I don't try Google first. I try it on youtube and mostly get interesting videos that not only solve my issue at hand but also show me how to get the job done. Try this out sometime and you'll know what I mean. I have also become a pretty reasonable cook in the past one year thanks to Youtube & good broadband.

Though Youtube is not immune from the vagaries of the net,( like too much quantity and not enough quality) the folks at the website have done a pretty decent job at the filtration options made available. I especially love the sidebar which shows the related videos to the one playing.

It's also intersting to note how 'video' as a form of content delivery is fast becoming a hit on the web. Most of the websites now prefer putting up a video of someone explaining about them than mundane text all over the place.Talking of videos , I remember a chat convo that I was having with my friend in Chennai last night . He was telling me that the whole city was under heavy showers since early morning. And for some reason, that made me miss the city more than ever before, I remembered those rain soaked bike rides to office which I used to truly cherish. Gut instinct made me search for 'Chennai Video' and what do I get... This website here provided me live feed from Chennai onto my screen...Yep, Live feed. They have cameras installed at traffic signals and they stream it onto the web ! I am not too sure if any of the US cities have anything remotely like that. But yep,as for me, I did get my splash of Chennai rains onto my screen :)

Grandfather's Paradox !

noreply@blogger.com (ranjit nair) — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 17:25:00 +0000

We recently had a small hurricane at my place. It was actually an aftereffect of Hurricane Ike after it devastated southern Texas. I was alone in my house that day and was lazing around seeing the fierce wind blowing at never seen before speeds & trees ,houses etc offering stiff resistance to it. Things seemed to be going just fine until the power went off. Power has gone out at times during my tenure in US but it had invariably come back within the next couple of minutes. I waited for about half an hour without much benefit, there seemed to be some serious problem this time around.

That's when I realised how much over dependent I had become on power off late. I tried using my laptop which was happy to run on battery, but then there was no internet as the modem was shut down. We don't have an UPS culture in US and so the place is not as power cut proof as some our Indian cities have come to be. I soon realised that the stove will also not turn on cos though the stove itself works on gas, the igniting system works on electricity. The washroom was still good as water was available, but I was not too sure how long that would have lasted. Worse, we don't use too many buckets in American washrooms to stock up some water. So the good old Indian trick failed miserably. But another problem was that washrooms were not designed in such a fashion as to allow any natural lighting into it, so even during the day , absence of power would mean that we would need to use a candle or any other emergency lighting.

With no internet, there was no avenue for any news to flow in. The TV won't work and there was no radio at home. I dug out an old torchlight and found that we lacked batteries at home. Not to mention lack of candles. :) Finally I got the torchlight working with some tweaking around with my camera batteries. That was the time when I remembered an old lesson given by my Grandfather. He used to live in a very remote village in Kerala. Everytime we used to visit him, the only thing he was very particular about was batteries, those big ones made by Eveready. And yep, boxes & boxes of it. The main reason was that he believed in being not too overdependent on the come-go electricity in villages. And the only 2 devices he used were an awefully long Eveready torch & a Philips radio which too was quite naturally, battery operated.

His world was pretty much independant along with these 2 devices. The torch meant that he was free to move around anywhere around the village at any time of the night & the radio meant that he was in touch with what's happening around him.

And there I was, supposedly living in the most developed & powerful of the countries in the world, rendered absolutely helpless with a small gush of wind.

Of Indian IT Industry - Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (ranjit nair) — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 00:32:00 +0000

Send all MBA's to the shop floor..at least for an years time !

I recently came across a story from one of my friends in a top Indian IT company. These are seemingly not so good times for the Industry and he was of course called up to be shown the exit door. I am not going into the details of why he was singled out, but then he was decided upon to be the scapegoat and was called to meet the HR manager. A father of a six month old , it seems he got into an argument over the issue and asked for time to get across to another job. I wouldn't disagree at the possibility of he having gotten angry with the manager.(Quite natural a reaction I presume) But then what the HR did is something I could never have imagined. It seems he called up the security, asked him to snatch the ID card of the employee and leave him at the door.
Hmmm....I remember the day when he ferociously argued me with on the phone about 6 months back when I asked him to move on when he had got a real nice job offer. His case in point ' I think it would be too difficult for the company to train another resource at this juncture to finish the project within our deadlines' .

Believe it or not, Indian IT today is indeed a hapless victim of commoditisation. There are numerous cases like the one above in point. The techie has been reduced to a mere number on employee rolls. Every firm seems to think that the IT professional is a very easily replaceable resource.And the truth being 'he indeed is !'

But does that mean that a company should start start caring less for it's workhorse. Don't get me wrong here, I am in no way accusing any Indian IT firm of paying shabby salaries to it's employees. In fact I am amongst those who believe that IT firms in India do an excellent job with their payrolls. But the problem definitely lies somewhere else.

All most all companies have a operating model in which technical minds have come to be controlled either directly or in prinicple by an MBA. I have no grudge against the degree in any way, but think of the kind of people who constitute the crowd at a middle rung MBA school in India today who makes it into the HR or a delivery position in an IT company. More than half of them are getting into their first job at the IT company. Another good percentage might be the frustrated IT professional himself who went on to get the degree cos he thought his current job was not getting him anywhere . (which might not be too far from truth btw)

Managing a guy with a good technical bent of mind is not easy. It's definitely not like sitting in a group and discussing why a particular brand of toothpaste didn't work in rural Bihar. How many of us even realise that the average Indian techie might be actually be more happy if he gets free food at the cafeteria than a thousand rupee hike in this paycheck ( Although both might end up costing the company the same) And look what we have for managing or HR'ifying these minds. People who either don't even understand what it is about sitting 10 hours a day coding unclear business requirements and then sit for the next half hour talking to someone thousands of miles away facing his wrath or people who belong to his own clan , but thought the job was too lowly a thing to do in life.

So what do we do ? Well for once, I would definitely love all such MBAs to be at the shopfloor for sometime understanding the business. You won't believe me, I have seen HR managers look around at times with awe at techies@work when they come for some 'unavoidable routines' with employees. Two years of repeated drill downs that an MBA's core dharma is nothing but to create shareholder value has spoilt them enough. They should all do the job that every professional does,( at least sit with them and aid them with the technical partof it ) , talk to clients (or at least listen to), sit with techies at cafeterias understanding their day to day life and issues, (You think they already do ? Think again. Get me to a cafe and show me an MBA sitting with teachies...and I'll get you a banana for free) , and best of it all take the same pay packets home for an year.

IT , at least in India seems to me like a people business. I somehow feel Indians are not too materialistic ppl, and nothing like engaging them on an emotional plane. MBAs should understand that every job has it's own dignity. Nothing , absolutely nothing is below anybody in this world.

Caveat : Forgive me if the post gives an idea to the reader that MBAs in Indian IT industry don't do anything usefult at all (that's taking things a bit too real ain't it :) . The fact is that their job too is pretty tough and asking. Endless targets to meet, client presentations,long hours of calls for those in marketing teams, engaging clients on an altogether different level etc etc..No disputes on that. This one's just to emphasise on the human side of business. Hope you all get it.

As I write this series, I am shocked at a spate of employee suicides coming in from the training center of a top Indian IT firm. This is at least the third such incident from the same place. Here, the one in Jan & here the one this Oct.

I have absolutely no comments to make on these. I just wonder if the same had happened in the USA (whose culture & pracitces Indian IT shamelessly emulates) , how much explanation & compensation would the company have had to make. But then , this is our 'regulation-free' India, we can get away with anything and prefer to stay 'mum'.
The company does seem to have given Rs 5 lakhs as compensation to the family. That would be the amount she earned her company in 17 days if she had been posted at an onsite location. Some way to give back ,eh. Oops, where am I going...? forgot that we are here just to create 'shareholder value'. Take care.

Amazon - An amazing reverse supply chain.

noreply@blogger.com (ranjit nair) — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 04:39:00 +0000

I have been a big fan of shopping at Amazon ever since I came to US. One major reason might be cos it was new for me since we don't have too many well established online shops in India.

The experience for me has been near flawless & kudos to them on this. But recently I got a product from them which wasn't meeting my expectations and so I decided to return it and get another one from them. Now this naturally got me worried cos I was imagining the long process ahead of me emailing the customer service about the issue. Anyways before doing that, I decided to go to the customer service section of the site to check out my options. And pleasantly surprised , was I.

The company seemed to have a very nicely put system in place to get things back for return/replacement. All I had to do was generate a request online,pack my stuff and courier it to them.And better, they promised me that they would bear all the cost of transporting the old and the new stuff. Impressed so far.
I went to bed thinking about the problems ahead in getting those courier charges reimbursed. (As Indians, we definitely know how all systems hate the word 'reimbursement').

Next morning I check my mails to get more surprises. The guys at amazon have already shipped my replacement ! And boy, I was still to put together the old product, let alone pack it. Impressed again.

And then after 2 hours another guy mails me from the customer service saying that they are sorry for the inconvenience caused to me because of this. Of all the other things, this one action of course sealed all my future online business with Amazon :) They sure know their basics. Impressed again.

Next mail follows in asking me to take a printout of a label with a bar code and paste it onto the box that I have packed up. Seems I have the option to either drop this box at the courier shop or they would pick it up from my home during their routine visit to the area. I decided on the former. Best thing...the label ensures that I don't have to pay a penny to the courier wala. Impressed , Ahoy.

Went to drop the stuff at the local courier office thinking on how I would explain the entire thing to the guy at the shop and get him on the same page. Most importantly about telling him how I have no plans to pay for the shipment :)
Got into the courier shop, the guy welcomes me , sees the Amazon label, gets the barcode scanned, asks if I need a receipt, gets me one and says 'you are all set !'
I definitely have to search for a better word than 'Impressed !' now.

And yes, I did get my replacement within a couple of days of raising the request.

Of Indian IT Industry : Part-1

noreply@blogger.com (ranjit nair) — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 23:51:00 +0000

A lot has of course been already written & is being written everyday about the Indian IT Industry .Their remarkable growth from a big zip to a world beating Industry today, their big plush office buildings, their employee friendly nature,their robust processes and more. They are also often rightly hailed as the Industry that redefined the 'idea' about India & Indians in the minds of people outside our country.

But the fact remains that in most of the cases, the Indian media did what it has always been good at doing : Superficial reporting. Nothing explains more why most of the media reports about the Industry is often a page taken out from the companies' routine press releases.

Indian IT industry is quite unique in nature when compared to other Industries across the globe. It's very different even when compared to the IT industry outside our country. A good amount of reason for this lies in the story of it's origins.Though not strictly intended for the form of 'Offshoring' that we see it doing today, it quickly adapted to the market realities post the dot com bust and created the business model that it operates in now.

Globally, Information technology business is considered 'high-tech' business. Indian IT industry is not. We don't even remotely do what you can term as 'high-tech' when compared to what is going on in the technology world of today. The founding fathers of India's IT industry took on the simple mantra of basic arithmetic to be their guiding factor. If 1+1 = 2, 1+1+1+1+1 is of course equal to 5 ! The bad thing was that they perhaps even forgot to think 5 times 1 is 5 & of course least remembered their classes in exponential series. Point being our IT industry essentially believing in the number game - Hire more people > get more clients > put those ppl onto those client's projects > come back to get more ppl > newer projects.....A pretty good example of how 'flat' human thinking can be !

The debate whether this was good or bad will always go on. It of course 'worked' , depending on your definition of what 'worked' means. It's also worth thinking on the reasons why this idea worked so well. Does all the credit go just to the IT companies or is a good part of the credit due on the Indian system. Huge population of engineers willing to do anything even remotely connected to what they learnt in 4 years, the Indian way of 'following the crowd' , the Indian idea of associating success with the amount of money or rather quick money that you earn, the young Indian lad who didn't complain when he was put to a 12 hour routine before computer screens, and last but never the least...the poor or for that matter lack of regulations in our country and repeated govt decisions to not interfere with a 'growing' Industry.

It's a fact that IT in India is an Industry which helped a good amount of Indians to create wealth with Integrity.In a pre-IT India, it used to be very difficult to earn a extra-decent lifestyle without compromising on your value systems. Anybody who used to drive a fancy car and spend an indecent amount of money on shopping would have naturally called for suspicious glances. This perhaps is one of the greatest achievements of the Industry. The very nature of the model which makes sure that it's resources don't move out of a concrete building and where 'requirements' come & 'products' go through wires helped much of the young India remain out of the world of bribes & illegal ways of making money.

But then... for how long would this show go on ? Forget the often repeated line 'low cost as a business model is not sustainable' , I sometimes wonder if the founding fathers of this Industry even grossly underestimated the intellectual capacities & aspirations of young Indians.

An 'offshore' resource (that's the name given in Indian IT to a guy who works in India) is typically billed at approximately 35 dollars an hour , 9 hours a day, 5 days a week. This translates to about 2,85,000 Indian rupees a month. The guy who 'actually' worked to get this money to his company earns about 35,000 a month. The point here is not that the guy is underpaid, 35 thousand is a very decent salary in India, but the point is to make you understand why almost all the Indian IT companies are so cash-rich today. Added to employee salaries, travel expenses, rental expenses , maintaining different supporting departments , routine Indian addition of 'flab' & other physical expenses too take some amount of the kitty, but I hope you sort of get to the whole picture.

This also exposes the shallowness of the model or may be an interesting paradox. Indian IT industry is often regarded as a positive step that our country made in its efforts to make itself developed. But would the very idea on which it's based survive in a developed economy? AHigher standards of living, increased cost pressures, tougher regulations would all make operating in India almost similar to operating in US. Then where ? Africa ? Another execution cycle of the same model ?