This IPL has been an ad fest. All this while, ads were shown only between overs, drinks breaks and when wickets fell. This time, they’re playing them in between deliveries (took a great deal of self control to refrain from using the word balls); and not just as the fast bowler walks back to take his run-up, even the spinners are not spared. So for the viewers, it’s not just the flurry of ads that is irksome, it’s the fact that most of these ads are pathetic means that one needs a greater degree of tolerance to put up with them. Watch the Tata Docomo ad, where the guy dumps his girlfriend and walks out with this other chik, if you aren’t convinced. Here’s an open appeal to Mr. Ratan Tata to fire the ad agency, and the VP of marketing of Tata Docomo. Shoddy stuff. The Zoozoo ads too are average at best.
But like Sherlock says in the movie, one can still make order out of chaos. I’ve tried to capture some of the emerging trends in the market place that advertisers are seeing this IPL time and playing to the tunes accordingly.
1) A bit of Tiger for everyone: Aircel started the ‘There are only 1411 left’ campaign, and several folks are now jumping on this boat. A couple of the Vodafone’s zoozoo ads feature the zoozoos’ accidental misadventures with the wild cat. Though not directly featuring the tiger, one of Airtel’s direct cable connection ads shows a cheetah running across and encourages people to watch wild life shows on TV.
2) Nimboo pani: Summer is about to set in, and it’s time for the soft drink makers to up the campaigns. But there are visibly three companies pitching for consumers to drink lemon flavored soft drinks. My guess is that lemon drinks don’t enjoy a high market share in India. And with the colas coming under fire every now and then, companies are looking to back themselves up by creating a larger market for nimbu paani. Minute Maid, Nimbuuuz and 7UP Lemon are at it, with the first two showcasing their product as being no different from freshly cut lime mixed in water.
3) AC for India: Keeping with the theme of summer, this is the perfect time for fan and air conditioner companies to get to work. Havells is excited like never before about its fans and safe-switches for hand held air dryers. But what interested me more were the air-conditioners. Amongst others, Samsung, Voltas and Godrej have been repetitively screening their ads with a heavy emphasis on the fact that their ACs are ‘made for India’. The reason ACs haven’t penetrated household markets in India is primarily due to the fear people have of a high electricity bill that might result therefore. So most people who would like to have an AC at home never buy one due to this fear. If you look at these three ads again, it’s not surprising to find that the central idea is that of ACs that consume less power.
4) Mobile phones for rural markets: It was only after reading a story in last month’s edition of Forbes could I understand the cause for the sudden influx of small time mobile phone makers challenging the Nokias, Sonys and Samsungs. Have you ever stopped and wondered the same thing? Until a few months back who had even heard of mobile phones from Micromax, Maxx, Lemon, Lava, Inq, Spice and Videocon? As much as we see mobile communication all around us, a great part of the rural market still remains untouched. The same is true for dual-sim mobiles for urban crowds. My guess is that most of these new players want a share of both these pies. This has really woken up the established players to start looking at their options. Understand the Samsung Guru mobile ad featuring Aamir Khan from this perspective, and it should make sense.
5) Gojiyo.com: A last observation is the launch of Godrej’s virtual reality portal gojiyo.com. The advertisement displays two subtle yet remarkable trends in the economy. Number one, the Indian youth is ready to accept or at least try a hand at virtual reality; something that Second Life despite all its success in the west could not make a dent in the Indian market. A name like Second Life is very niche, compared to a more mass appealing name like gojiyo. The second observation, in my opinion is to be considered with more weight than the first. It basically says that you still need to advertise a website on television. Since the internet penetration in India in still low, companies still need to go to the television crowds to preview a teaser of their websites. This shouldn’t really come as a surprise if you also observed that the number of ads for television sets is noticeably high this IPL.
This article is not an ad feature, and opinions mentioned here are solely mine. Brand names have been taken out of free-will, and I have kept away from providing back-links to any of them.
If you liked this article, you might also want to read this.
Showing posts with label Society. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Society. Show all posts
Monday, March 22, 2010
Thursday, March 11, 2010
The Root of Hypocrisy
In the movie Cocktail, Tom Cruise works as a bar tender by evening, and is also finishing up a business degree in a local New York City College, and has high aspirations to make it big in the world of business. In one of the scenes, the teacher gives an assignment to the class to hand in a business plan. When the results come, Tom Cruise’s character Brian Flanagan finds himself with an F for his proposal of a bar franchise business. In his angst at the professor’s disapproval, he accuses to the teacher as being in academics due to lack of guts to face the outside world.
If you’re working in corporate, and for one reason or the other you do move into the academic world, the protective cocoon of the later can feel either warm and fuzzy or completely alien and unchallenging. Though both these reactions are skewed, the truth lies somewhere in the middle and can be attributed to the fact that each ecosystem comes with its inherent set of characteristics.
The corporate world attracts people from all walks of life. While many treat it as a rote job, a hungry handful pursues life here with a one-eyed maniacal focus on career growth. But in between these two extremes again are all the grades of people. If you stop and observe the behavior of folks in the rank and file of a corporation, you’ll need less than two minutes to understand that the whole system is management driven. When you begin to start managing a group of people, the black box in the picture is the passion and commitment of the members involved towards their field of work. And often, if a person isn’t passionate or committed to his work, chances are their work ethic is poor. From this you invoke one of the most used phrases of the IT era called 'slacking off’. But in academia, the situation tends be slightly different. People in this pool know they can’t be in it for the money. That in itself is huge entry barrier. Unlike the corporate world, academia is not your glamour stable. Logically then, you can’t be in it for very many reasons, not counting circumstances that forced you into it. And again, as it’s not hard to observe if you talk to ten professors and twenty PhD students, that they love their subject, and are hence passionate about it. This means that more often than not, a poor work ethic is not tolerated in the top academic and university research environments. Slacking off is for the administrative staff.
Despite the differences shown here and otherwise, there’s a common syndrome that appears in both these places (and in several other places as well) that I like to refer to as the root of hypocrisy.
The root of hypocrisy, unlike what it sounds, is not an incompetence related Peter Principle. It’s best to understand this with examples. Let’s take the corporate world first: an employee is pulled up by his boss for slacking off, and his results at work or the lack of it are questioned. This is usually the employee that gives two hoots at what is being said at team meetings, and will, on several occasions ridicule the boss’ motivational talk as being just hot air. In the event that this person is promoted and given a team to manage, all of a sudden, he now expects his subordinates to cooperate, produce results and stay motivated. He doesn’t tolerate coming in late to work and expects his people to take shorter coffee breaks. He can be seen as being completely oblivious to the fact that he himself was, until recently, an exhibition of all the above stated gray areas. In the academic environment, you can draw parallels. A professor shows little tolerance and patience to the students’ lack of understanding of a subject, notwithstanding the fact that they might have shaky basics in it, just like he/she might have had in earlier years.
We all experience such things, and some of us might be guilty of it ourselves. If you dissect the problem, you can see two entities emerging out of it. A) is what can be called as the individual’s character, and B) is what can be called the role’s character. Every individual in effect wears a hat to play a role. This could be the role of a son, a batsman, an employee, a philanthropist, a mentor, a student and the list is endless. Each role comes with a *set of characteristics* that have to be rightly followed irrespective of who’s stepping in to it. At the same time, the person who steps into the shoes of a particular job also carries with him/her a set of values or a pattern of programming that is unique to that person. When the ball (the individual) sits into the socket (the role), the dimensional constraints of the socket dictates the degree of freedom for the movement of the ball.
A straightforward example, though its mention here might seem partly out of context, is that of an actor. Jim Carey could be the funniest guy on screen in the characters he portrays, but could be a stern and stiff faced bloke in his real life. When you take this analogy and superimpose it on the cases mentioned above, you can understand the case of the employee being promoted to managing staff. The care free employee now finds himself in a role that requires him to act in a manner that is not in accordance with his real self. But for the greater good of his livelihood and that of his family's, he then subdues his inherent nature and plays to the tune of the new piper. Similar is it with the professor and the student. During my torrential teenage years, I remember reading something that I bought then as Gospel truth. It said “Parents of teenagers often behave like they had nothing to do with teenage life themselves” or something similar.
This conflict between the character of the individual and the character of the role can look very confusing from the outside, especially when a person moves through multiple roles in quick successions and takes time to grow into each role. We outsiders, not understanding the inside story, coined a word for this state: hypocrisy.
If you’re working in corporate, and for one reason or the other you do move into the academic world, the protective cocoon of the later can feel either warm and fuzzy or completely alien and unchallenging. Though both these reactions are skewed, the truth lies somewhere in the middle and can be attributed to the fact that each ecosystem comes with its inherent set of characteristics.
The corporate world attracts people from all walks of life. While many treat it as a rote job, a hungry handful pursues life here with a one-eyed maniacal focus on career growth. But in between these two extremes again are all the grades of people. If you stop and observe the behavior of folks in the rank and file of a corporation, you’ll need less than two minutes to understand that the whole system is management driven. When you begin to start managing a group of people, the black box in the picture is the passion and commitment of the members involved towards their field of work. And often, if a person isn’t passionate or committed to his work, chances are their work ethic is poor. From this you invoke one of the most used phrases of the IT era called 'slacking off’. But in academia, the situation tends be slightly different. People in this pool know they can’t be in it for the money. That in itself is huge entry barrier. Unlike the corporate world, academia is not your glamour stable. Logically then, you can’t be in it for very many reasons, not counting circumstances that forced you into it. And again, as it’s not hard to observe if you talk to ten professors and twenty PhD students, that they love their subject, and are hence passionate about it. This means that more often than not, a poor work ethic is not tolerated in the top academic and university research environments. Slacking off is for the administrative staff.
Despite the differences shown here and otherwise, there’s a common syndrome that appears in both these places (and in several other places as well) that I like to refer to as the root of hypocrisy.
The root of hypocrisy, unlike what it sounds, is not an incompetence related Peter Principle. It’s best to understand this with examples. Let’s take the corporate world first: an employee is pulled up by his boss for slacking off, and his results at work or the lack of it are questioned. This is usually the employee that gives two hoots at what is being said at team meetings, and will, on several occasions ridicule the boss’ motivational talk as being just hot air. In the event that this person is promoted and given a team to manage, all of a sudden, he now expects his subordinates to cooperate, produce results and stay motivated. He doesn’t tolerate coming in late to work and expects his people to take shorter coffee breaks. He can be seen as being completely oblivious to the fact that he himself was, until recently, an exhibition of all the above stated gray areas. In the academic environment, you can draw parallels. A professor shows little tolerance and patience to the students’ lack of understanding of a subject, notwithstanding the fact that they might have shaky basics in it, just like he/she might have had in earlier years.
We all experience such things, and some of us might be guilty of it ourselves. If you dissect the problem, you can see two entities emerging out of it. A) is what can be called as the individual’s character, and B) is what can be called the role’s character. Every individual in effect wears a hat to play a role. This could be the role of a son, a batsman, an employee, a philanthropist, a mentor, a student and the list is endless. Each role comes with a *set of characteristics* that have to be rightly followed irrespective of who’s stepping in to it. At the same time, the person who steps into the shoes of a particular job also carries with him/her a set of values or a pattern of programming that is unique to that person. When the ball (the individual) sits into the socket (the role), the dimensional constraints of the socket dictates the degree of freedom for the movement of the ball.
A straightforward example, though its mention here might seem partly out of context, is that of an actor. Jim Carey could be the funniest guy on screen in the characters he portrays, but could be a stern and stiff faced bloke in his real life. When you take this analogy and superimpose it on the cases mentioned above, you can understand the case of the employee being promoted to managing staff. The care free employee now finds himself in a role that requires him to act in a manner that is not in accordance with his real self. But for the greater good of his livelihood and that of his family's, he then subdues his inherent nature and plays to the tune of the new piper. Similar is it with the professor and the student. During my torrential teenage years, I remember reading something that I bought then as Gospel truth. It said “Parents of teenagers often behave like they had nothing to do with teenage life themselves” or something similar.
This conflict between the character of the individual and the character of the role can look very confusing from the outside, especially when a person moves through multiple roles in quick successions and takes time to grow into each role. We outsiders, not understanding the inside story, coined a word for this state: hypocrisy.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Before sending the next forward
The baby boomer generation can be forgiven for their gaucherie at handling e-mails and surfing the web in general. Now obviously, there are the exceptional few from that day and age who are far more adroit than my beer drinking pal from college at choosing the message they pass around in cyberspace. Without singling out any particular person or meaning offense to anyone, I’d like to take a step back and say that seeing my inbox flooded with forwards isn’t really something I enjoy. I might open and check a few; but if all eleven are from the same sender, you know where they’re going: to the trash can.
But more than the volume of forwards that can piss people off, it’s their content that’s a bigger turn off. Look at it this way. I get a forward this morning saying that a ten year old boy contacted AIDS when he ate a pineapple from the street vendor. The forward says things like the pineapple seller was a victim of AIDS, and while cutting the fruit blood stains from his fingers remained on the pulp which in turn affected the boy when he ate it. If I’m not a student of science, or my general awareness is not remarkably high, my first reaction would be to believe the content in the forward. And since I caught my teenage cousin buying mangoes from the street vendor last week, I’m keen to let him know how dangerous that can be. So I forward this mail to him. Now, he respects me and looks up to me, and so coming from a trust worthy source, the lad is going to believe that buying fruits from stalls on the street can cause AIDS. He’s going to go and educate his friends about it the next time; or worse still he’ll forward it to his friends.
But truth remains that there was no ten year old that got AIDS by eating pineapple. As an adult, by sending out unverified information, I’m responsible for teaching wrong stuff to people. Sure, I didn’t come up with the content in the forward. But sending it out without verification doesn’t excuse me either. So how do i verify forwards?
Snopes.com is a great website that validates popular forwards that we receive. The website is maintained by a couple in their late 40’s and their story was featured in Reader’s Digest in 2009. The website tells you whether a post is "true," "false," or "undetermined”. Every one of these verdicts is backed by thorough research and a full text explanation and references.
So how do I work through snopes.com? Simple; follow these steps:
1) Google snopes + title of the forward or a portion of the text from the forward.
2) Hit Enter.
3) The first link in the search results should usually take you to the page that gives you a call on whether what you just received is true or otherwise.
Have a fun time browsing through snopes.com. And by the way, here’s the link to the pineapple story: http://www.snopes.com/horrors/food/pineapple.asp
Use e-mail responsibly.
But more than the volume of forwards that can piss people off, it’s their content that’s a bigger turn off. Look at it this way. I get a forward this morning saying that a ten year old boy contacted AIDS when he ate a pineapple from the street vendor. The forward says things like the pineapple seller was a victim of AIDS, and while cutting the fruit blood stains from his fingers remained on the pulp which in turn affected the boy when he ate it. If I’m not a student of science, or my general awareness is not remarkably high, my first reaction would be to believe the content in the forward. And since I caught my teenage cousin buying mangoes from the street vendor last week, I’m keen to let him know how dangerous that can be. So I forward this mail to him. Now, he respects me and looks up to me, and so coming from a trust worthy source, the lad is going to believe that buying fruits from stalls on the street can cause AIDS. He’s going to go and educate his friends about it the next time; or worse still he’ll forward it to his friends.
But truth remains that there was no ten year old that got AIDS by eating pineapple. As an adult, by sending out unverified information, I’m responsible for teaching wrong stuff to people. Sure, I didn’t come up with the content in the forward. But sending it out without verification doesn’t excuse me either. So how do i verify forwards?
Snopes.com is a great website that validates popular forwards that we receive. The website is maintained by a couple in their late 40’s and their story was featured in Reader’s Digest in 2009. The website tells you whether a post is "true," "false," or "undetermined”. Every one of these verdicts is backed by thorough research and a full text explanation and references.
So how do I work through snopes.com? Simple; follow these steps:
1) Google snopes + title of the forward or a portion of the text from the forward.
2) Hit Enter.
3) The first link in the search results should usually take you to the page that gives you a call on whether what you just received is true or otherwise.
Have a fun time browsing through snopes.com. And by the way, here’s the link to the pineapple story: http://www.snopes.com/horrors/food/pineapple.asp
Use e-mail responsibly.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Appealing to a higher cause
We got free passes through a friend to attend yesterday’s Parikrama and Saif Ali Khan’s concert at Palace Grounds. Once we reached and the opening band got playing, only then did it dawn on us that this wasn’t actually a concert for a concert’s sake. This was a concert for the launch of a car brand. We did see Chevy’s name splashed all over the place. They must be the principal sponsors, I guessed. But soon enough, the host for the evening (with questionable compeering skills) kept raving on about the ‘heart beat, sexy beat and smart beat’ of the Chevy Beat. Not until the show troupe of dancers and jugglers were on stage did it become apparent that the star of the show was not really Parikrama or Saif; but it was the Beat. They had the corporate triangles (meaning the top guys) of Chevrolet come to say ‘a few words’ to a stoned audience.
To say the least, it showcased some poor PR work by the company. One of the triangles went to the extent of saying “Please endorse our product.” You never say please to a potential customer. You’d like them to buy your stuff, but not to the extent where you say ‘please’. Saif’s stage presence was average. But the applause rained for Parikrama from the open skies above them. Good job, fellas!
Advertisements today need to appeal to a higher cause of the buyer. At least if not directly, every customer on a sub-conscious level needs to feel like he is associated with a brand that has a cause beyond selling products and straightening its bottom line. Vulgar marketing of this age will mean telling the world what your product is through a celeb and jingle and blatantly asking for the crowds to endorse it. Like what Chevy did at the concert. The smart advertiser of today is the one who can take a product and sell it to the world by embedding it as part of a bigger cause.
Let me quote two instances here.
Funnily, both of these examples come from the telecom world. Idea Cellular’s ad sells the idea of conserving forests and reducing the use of paper by using more phones instead. Similarly, Aircel’s ad features Baichung Bhutia saying that he’s now a part of the Tiger Conservation project in India. In both these cases, the celebrities employed to endorse the brand end up speaking about the larger community issue of forest conservation and tiger conservation respectively; and the brand name slipstreams into the ad towards the end as a matter-of-fact. To an average customer like me, who is fairly concerned about both the social problems, I now perceive that my involvement with the brand could potentially help solve the larger issue. Again at a subconscious level, I’m now buying a role in saving a tiger’s life and not just buying a sim card.
This approach has a better chance to pay off for companies adopting them rather than the direct approach of tell-and-sell, for at a logical level it’s a win-win situation: higher profits, more awareness and marketing mileage for the company’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) matters.
To say the least, it showcased some poor PR work by the company. One of the triangles went to the extent of saying “Please endorse our product.” You never say please to a potential customer. You’d like them to buy your stuff, but not to the extent where you say ‘please’. Saif’s stage presence was average. But the applause rained for Parikrama from the open skies above them. Good job, fellas!
Advertisements today need to appeal to a higher cause of the buyer. At least if not directly, every customer on a sub-conscious level needs to feel like he is associated with a brand that has a cause beyond selling products and straightening its bottom line. Vulgar marketing of this age will mean telling the world what your product is through a celeb and jingle and blatantly asking for the crowds to endorse it. Like what Chevy did at the concert. The smart advertiser of today is the one who can take a product and sell it to the world by embedding it as part of a bigger cause.
Let me quote two instances here.
Funnily, both of these examples come from the telecom world. Idea Cellular’s ad sells the idea of conserving forests and reducing the use of paper by using more phones instead. Similarly, Aircel’s ad features Baichung Bhutia saying that he’s now a part of the Tiger Conservation project in India. In both these cases, the celebrities employed to endorse the brand end up speaking about the larger community issue of forest conservation and tiger conservation respectively; and the brand name slipstreams into the ad towards the end as a matter-of-fact. To an average customer like me, who is fairly concerned about both the social problems, I now perceive that my involvement with the brand could potentially help solve the larger issue. Again at a subconscious level, I’m now buying a role in saving a tiger’s life and not just buying a sim card.
This approach has a better chance to pay off for companies adopting them rather than the direct approach of tell-and-sell, for at a logical level it’s a win-win situation: higher profits, more awareness and marketing mileage for the company’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) matters.
Monday, January 11, 2010
A Brief History of Bad Breath
That’s right; bad breath. That’ll be the theme for this post.
When was the first time in human history that man first started brushing his teeth? Why did he start this at the first place? Did he do it necessarily to keep up oral hygiene, or did he get started on it because early woman demanded it of him?
I don’t know why they started it, but I’m sure glad that one day someone was wandering in the woods. The guy probably broke off a twig and stuck it in his mouth and lo and behold, the dental care market was born. We’ve heard tales from Jataka where neem twigs were used in the early days of dental care. In fact, it is still used widely in several parts of rural India. People then (and even now) used mud to clean their teeth. How then did we evolve from twigs and mud to Sorbitol, Sodium Silicate and 0.04% Methanol in mouthwash?
The answer to this complex question lies at the intersection of a historical time line and biological evolution. In the early days, humans were sparsely populated across a geographical stretch. Just like all animals, humans too have a personal space (or bubble) around them. As dogs go around the block leaving their excretions to demarcate their territorial space, so do humans. Public urination is proof enough.
So when humans were fewer in number, they had relatively bigger personal spaces. As we got good at mating, the per head availability of space reduced, and consequently the size of each of our bubbles shrunk. This was about the time when early woman refused to sleep with early man any longer unless he started his day by biting away at the neem twigs. As more and more people came inside a given territorial boundary, they started interacting at closer quarters and began heavily encroaching each others’ personal spaces. By this stage, even early woman was sucked into biting away at twigs and sediments. Very soon everyone was at it. The common denominator of society was set at brushing when you woke up.
Unlike other evolving social trends, oral hygiene demands a person to stay a cut above the rest in order to smell ‘better’. If I have good breath and you have good breath, then we both don’t realize that the other has good breath because both of us now operate at the same level. But if one of us has good breath and the other has bad breath, now you can tell the difference. This perfect imbalance spawned the market for the tooth paste and then the tooth brush. (Truly speaking, the story of the tooth brush and the tooth paste is a chicken-and-egg problem. So we won’t go into that one.) Now the whole world started using a toothbrush and toothpaste in the morning. To get ahead of competition, some guy started brushing twice a day.
You see, the story could have ended there. But in order to stay ahead of the rest of the pack, I have filled my toilet shelf with the latest battery operated toothbrush, a tongue cleaner developed by NASA for its astronauts, a 5-in-1 toothpaste that squeezes out of both ends of the tube, a set of dental floss so fine it can pass though the two syllables of ‘Hello’, a bottle of mouthwash with a higher percentage of alcohol than absinthe and a self invented, patent-pending mouth spray so strong that even a whiff in your eyes can cause permanent blindness.
Good luck to the rest of the world!
When was the first time in human history that man first started brushing his teeth? Why did he start this at the first place? Did he do it necessarily to keep up oral hygiene, or did he get started on it because early woman demanded it of him?
I don’t know why they started it, but I’m sure glad that one day someone was wandering in the woods. The guy probably broke off a twig and stuck it in his mouth and lo and behold, the dental care market was born. We’ve heard tales from Jataka where neem twigs were used in the early days of dental care. In fact, it is still used widely in several parts of rural India. People then (and even now) used mud to clean their teeth. How then did we evolve from twigs and mud to Sorbitol, Sodium Silicate and 0.04% Methanol in mouthwash?
The answer to this complex question lies at the intersection of a historical time line and biological evolution. In the early days, humans were sparsely populated across a geographical stretch. Just like all animals, humans too have a personal space (or bubble) around them. As dogs go around the block leaving their excretions to demarcate their territorial space, so do humans. Public urination is proof enough.
So when humans were fewer in number, they had relatively bigger personal spaces. As we got good at mating, the per head availability of space reduced, and consequently the size of each of our bubbles shrunk. This was about the time when early woman refused to sleep with early man any longer unless he started his day by biting away at the neem twigs. As more and more people came inside a given territorial boundary, they started interacting at closer quarters and began heavily encroaching each others’ personal spaces. By this stage, even early woman was sucked into biting away at twigs and sediments. Very soon everyone was at it. The common denominator of society was set at brushing when you woke up.
Unlike other evolving social trends, oral hygiene demands a person to stay a cut above the rest in order to smell ‘better’. If I have good breath and you have good breath, then we both don’t realize that the other has good breath because both of us now operate at the same level. But if one of us has good breath and the other has bad breath, now you can tell the difference. This perfect imbalance spawned the market for the tooth paste and then the tooth brush. (Truly speaking, the story of the tooth brush and the tooth paste is a chicken-and-egg problem. So we won’t go into that one.) Now the whole world started using a toothbrush and toothpaste in the morning. To get ahead of competition, some guy started brushing twice a day.
You see, the story could have ended there. But in order to stay ahead of the rest of the pack, I have filled my toilet shelf with the latest battery operated toothbrush, a tongue cleaner developed by NASA for its astronauts, a 5-in-1 toothpaste that squeezes out of both ends of the tube, a set of dental floss so fine it can pass though the two syllables of ‘Hello’, a bottle of mouthwash with a higher percentage of alcohol than absinthe and a self invented, patent-pending mouth spray so strong that even a whiff in your eyes can cause permanent blindness.
Good luck to the rest of the world!
Monday, January 4, 2010
Peek over the pail and look down the road
So this is the year they were talking about after all, eh? At the turn of 2000, tech futurists went to work thanks to all those advancements that were happening. The real visionaries spoke about the year 2020, and the short-sighted (pun unintended) ones kept themselves occupied with 2010. It was all over the place, remember? Somehow, 2010 (or the turn of the decade as we call it) was expected to be this tipping point in everything that cocooned the human imagination. They said it all – ranging from high rates of diabetes to back to back economic recessions to selling real estate on the moon. Somehow, in 2002 (or 03), 2010 seemed liked this year that was way into the future. For some of us it even seemed that it would take a really really long while to get there.
But then, here we are. It’s 2010 and it doesn’t feel very much different than it did when they made those predictions, really. The undeniable fact however is that the world today looks very very different from the one 7 or 8 years ago; maybe even 3 or 4 years ago. Probably because we’ve come to accept change living day to day that we don’t realize it! The futurists were right. Well, at least some of them were. So i find it hard to digest when people say "This is what i am, i can't change." Sorry bud, don't tell fibs.
So the deal-of-this-coming-decade as I understand is the (seemingly obvious) fact that we’re going to remain logged on to the internet twenty four bar seven. Logging on-and-off is out; staying logged on is in. This means we’ll all have a smart phone in our hands whether we like it or not. Balckberries ain't just for the C-suite guys. If some one had told you in 1999 that you’d OWN a mobile phone ten years from now, you’d have probably thought that the guy had lost his marbles. But trust me to trust the tech pundits on the blackberry thing.
Expect two other things this decade:
Number one:- Expect drug companies to shift towards producing preventive medical treatment moving forward over the traditional curative medications. People and insurance companies it seems are more into fixing the tap before it leaks. If you're planning on studying medicine, at least be sure to learn nutritional medicine really well.
Number two: - If people are going to stay logged on to the internet 24X7, much of the money in the world will move into cyberspace (accelerating the already building trend). How does that help you and me? This means that if we can figure out a way to get a slice of this internet money pie (monetizing blogs, tweets so on), we can effectively work at our careers because we like it and not because we have to. Which means, expect to see people in their twenties retiring before their parents do. And expect billionaires still in high school. Forbes will just have to put out a trillionarries list eventually.
Until then, sit back and have a meaningful year ahead. Take care of the years, and the decade will take care of itself.
But then, here we are. It’s 2010 and it doesn’t feel very much different than it did when they made those predictions, really. The undeniable fact however is that the world today looks very very different from the one 7 or 8 years ago; maybe even 3 or 4 years ago. Probably because we’ve come to accept change living day to day that we don’t realize it! The futurists were right. Well, at least some of them were. So i find it hard to digest when people say "This is what i am, i can't change." Sorry bud, don't tell fibs.
So the deal-of-this-coming-decade as I understand is the (seemingly obvious) fact that we’re going to remain logged on to the internet twenty four bar seven. Logging on-and-off is out; staying logged on is in. This means we’ll all have a smart phone in our hands whether we like it or not. Balckberries ain't just for the C-suite guys. If some one had told you in 1999 that you’d OWN a mobile phone ten years from now, you’d have probably thought that the guy had lost his marbles. But trust me to trust the tech pundits on the blackberry thing.
Expect two other things this decade:
Number one:- Expect drug companies to shift towards producing preventive medical treatment moving forward over the traditional curative medications. People and insurance companies it seems are more into fixing the tap before it leaks. If you're planning on studying medicine, at least be sure to learn nutritional medicine really well.
Number two: - If people are going to stay logged on to the internet 24X7, much of the money in the world will move into cyberspace (accelerating the already building trend). How does that help you and me? This means that if we can figure out a way to get a slice of this internet money pie (monetizing blogs, tweets so on), we can effectively work at our careers because we like it and not because we have to. Which means, expect to see people in their twenties retiring before their parents do. And expect billionaires still in high school. Forbes will just have to put out a trillionarries list eventually.
Until then, sit back and have a meaningful year ahead. Take care of the years, and the decade will take care of itself.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
A world of spiraling success
The chance of a third world war breaking out is remote. Read The World is Flat if you want to be convinced about this fact. Despite the supposed bad times that we are in economically, when you take account of the things around and as you zoom out, it is in fact not very hard to believe that the world as a whole is spawning on a path of self development. Technology is getting more sophisticated and life is in a way getting more comfortable, but the one thing that hasn’t changed is the human emotions and the way the mind works.
Our discussion here is about the domino effect that is created by the company a person keeps. By company, we imply those thoughts that fill a person’s mind in a given day. Like the saying goes- if you want to fly with the eagles, you’ve got to stop pecking with the hens. Who we hang around with and who we listen to is far too consequential that most of us hardly pay attention. One of the principles of personal success in any field as history has shown is to surround oneself with successful people. Group dynamics automatically ensures that an individual performs at a level close to that of his high performing peers.
Tracing back a well known fact, it is estimated that 1% of the world’s population controls close to 96% of the wealth on earth. Why is that we don’t have more than 1% doing this? The answer is association. If I could have a daily access to what is running though the head of Barrack Obama, or Roger Federer, I would be better positioned to think along the same lines and react like they would in circumstances. Association leads to a change in thinking, be it positive or negative. And what drives those thoughts is inspiration. If you got to spend a couple of minutes with a person you admire, you might probably come back feeling better. You would probably choose your actions differently from there on based on the inspiration you received from the person and not from the information you received in the form of advice.
Twitter, social networks, blogs and so on; the internet has put the 99% of the population in direct access with the 1%. There’s more unfiltered information coming though between the two camps that was unseen and unheard till recently. For instance, I can now follow my idol Shashi Tharoor and get into his mind through his tweets. Or I can understand at closer quarters what Aamir Khan is thinking through his blog. That inspiration drives the future. As more people start acting on that inspiration, and as success begins to breed success, it is but inevitable that we’ll see more wealth creators coming out. By the turn of 2050, that 1% could possibly become2%. In this way, the world has set itself up for a self perpetuating ride towards a brighter future thanks to the internet.
Our discussion here is about the domino effect that is created by the company a person keeps. By company, we imply those thoughts that fill a person’s mind in a given day. Like the saying goes- if you want to fly with the eagles, you’ve got to stop pecking with the hens. Who we hang around with and who we listen to is far too consequential that most of us hardly pay attention. One of the principles of personal success in any field as history has shown is to surround oneself with successful people. Group dynamics automatically ensures that an individual performs at a level close to that of his high performing peers.
Tracing back a well known fact, it is estimated that 1% of the world’s population controls close to 96% of the wealth on earth. Why is that we don’t have more than 1% doing this? The answer is association. If I could have a daily access to what is running though the head of Barrack Obama, or Roger Federer, I would be better positioned to think along the same lines and react like they would in circumstances. Association leads to a change in thinking, be it positive or negative. And what drives those thoughts is inspiration. If you got to spend a couple of minutes with a person you admire, you might probably come back feeling better. You would probably choose your actions differently from there on based on the inspiration you received from the person and not from the information you received in the form of advice.
Twitter, social networks, blogs and so on; the internet has put the 99% of the population in direct access with the 1%. There’s more unfiltered information coming though between the two camps that was unseen and unheard till recently. For instance, I can now follow my idol Shashi Tharoor and get into his mind through his tweets. Or I can understand at closer quarters what Aamir Khan is thinking through his blog. That inspiration drives the future. As more people start acting on that inspiration, and as success begins to breed success, it is but inevitable that we’ll see more wealth creators coming out. By the turn of 2050, that 1% could possibly become2%. In this way, the world has set itself up for a self perpetuating ride towards a brighter future thanks to the internet.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
The calf syndrome
Thanks Ramya for the engaging conversation last evening. I’m sure Accenture wouldn’t be too pleased to read this! But nonetheless, you won yourself a surprise gift for the surprise idea.
I’m looking for the answer that settles this question once and for all: what is the right age to enter the workforce?
If that question is leading you to think in the direction of child labor, pause. What’s running through my head after close to a year in the corporate world is more or less what almost every other kid of my age is thinking, which is: work life sucks. I want to go back to college.
Let’s call this the calf syndrome. If you’ve seen a new born calf, you’ll know that anytime it tries to stand on its fours, the legs slip away in the opposite directions and give way. The calf lands with a thud and stays comfortable sitting. Until the legs stiffen up and get strong, the calf cannot do much but to stand and fall again.
The first year (at least) out of college into the workplace is like that in my opinion. You are trying to find your feet. Suddenly, the world looks bigger and more unforgiving than you initially anticipated. You come to realize that the kid in class who told you that rules are meant to be broken wasn’t quite right, after all. You get your Form 16 and you have no clue what it even means. All of a sudden, that thing called independence is no-where to be seen. For those of you still in college, you’ve been warned.
You know where I’m going with this. Close your eyes for a moment to all those souls who are crying to get back to college.
I’m reminded of an old joke that did the rounds: What’s common to an engineering college and a public toilet? Answer: The ones outside want to get in and the ones inside want to get out.
You can substitute ‘engineering college’ in that joke with ‘corporate’. And if you’re a fan of Shawshank Redemption, the calf syndrome lasts till you get institutionalized. How long would that be?
Depends.
I’m looking for the answer that settles this question once and for all: what is the right age to enter the workforce?
If that question is leading you to think in the direction of child labor, pause. What’s running through my head after close to a year in the corporate world is more or less what almost every other kid of my age is thinking, which is: work life sucks. I want to go back to college.
Let’s call this the calf syndrome. If you’ve seen a new born calf, you’ll know that anytime it tries to stand on its fours, the legs slip away in the opposite directions and give way. The calf lands with a thud and stays comfortable sitting. Until the legs stiffen up and get strong, the calf cannot do much but to stand and fall again.
The first year (at least) out of college into the workplace is like that in my opinion. You are trying to find your feet. Suddenly, the world looks bigger and more unforgiving than you initially anticipated. You come to realize that the kid in class who told you that rules are meant to be broken wasn’t quite right, after all. You get your Form 16 and you have no clue what it even means. All of a sudden, that thing called independence is no-where to be seen. For those of you still in college, you’ve been warned.
You know where I’m going with this. Close your eyes for a moment to all those souls who are crying to get back to college.
I’m reminded of an old joke that did the rounds: What’s common to an engineering college and a public toilet? Answer: The ones outside want to get in and the ones inside want to get out.
You can substitute ‘engineering college’ in that joke with ‘corporate’. And if you’re a fan of Shawshank Redemption, the calf syndrome lasts till you get institutionalized. How long would that be?
Depends.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Always grateful, but never enough
My Principal in high school taught us chemistry. Besides the Aufbau principle of how electrons fill into the atomic sub-shells, I remember one other thing she told us. It was on our graduation day and I quote her “The purpose of an education is not to compete with the other person; but rather, it is about competing with oneself”. How boring and clichéd is that statement? Very.
But how important and significant is it? Very.
In his blog, my friend Sumeet talks about an inner struggle. He describes his constant search for perfection in anything he does, or in anything he seeks. A part of the brain is constantly scanning and probing around to show each of us why that guy or girl is better than us. Sumeet goes on to describe how we live our lives by measuring ourselves with our peers. Or what the world popularly knows as keeping-up-with-the-Joneses. A key takeaway from his article for me was the line “i myself think of many things i have not and i am not. it brings a feeling of discontentment towards quality of life in me …”. This line packs in everything that I was looking to tell my audience on this blog.
Society teaches us to operate from a win-lose paradigm - that in order for me to win, someone needs to lose; that there are only so many seats available and there are more people in the race than there are seats available. In a nut shell, we are told from day one that there is a ‘lack of’ resources in this world. Stats are all over the place showing how only a fraction of the people who appear for the IIT/IIM entrance exams clear them. A kid comes home from school with the report card, and the mother asks “How much did Karthik get? How much did Richa get?” The kid must have got 4th rank, while Karthik and Richa stood 1st and 2nd respectively. The mother doesn’t appreciate the fact that her kid outperformed 35 others in class. She instead chooses to focus on the fact that her kid lags behind 3 others. So there on, the kid is constantly operating from a feeling of ‘not enough’. And this remains until the ‘not enough’ becomes a part of the gene. That kid could be you. That kid could be me. This is the kid that moves through life with a sense of zero accomplishment even when that may not be the case.
How is this problem fixed?
I heard this somewhere and it made sense to me. This is not about thinking positive. It is about working with a sense of gratitude; and gratitude is a word I go back to very often. That is to say you are thankful for whatever you have now, but we just can’t stagnate here. Always grateful, but never enough.
“Fantastic that I outperformed 35 others in class. Superb! But how can I get to number 1?”
And mom, when the child falls, you don’t shoot the shoot the wounded.
But how important and significant is it? Very.
In his blog, my friend Sumeet talks about an inner struggle. He describes his constant search for perfection in anything he does, or in anything he seeks. A part of the brain is constantly scanning and probing around to show each of us why that guy or girl is better than us. Sumeet goes on to describe how we live our lives by measuring ourselves with our peers. Or what the world popularly knows as keeping-up-with-the-Joneses. A key takeaway from his article for me was the line “i myself think of many things i have not and i am not. it brings a feeling of discontentment towards quality of life in me …”. This line packs in everything that I was looking to tell my audience on this blog.
Society teaches us to operate from a win-lose paradigm - that in order for me to win, someone needs to lose; that there are only so many seats available and there are more people in the race than there are seats available. In a nut shell, we are told from day one that there is a ‘lack of’ resources in this world. Stats are all over the place showing how only a fraction of the people who appear for the IIT/IIM entrance exams clear them. A kid comes home from school with the report card, and the mother asks “How much did Karthik get? How much did Richa get?” The kid must have got 4th rank, while Karthik and Richa stood 1st and 2nd respectively. The mother doesn’t appreciate the fact that her kid outperformed 35 others in class. She instead chooses to focus on the fact that her kid lags behind 3 others. So there on, the kid is constantly operating from a feeling of ‘not enough’. And this remains until the ‘not enough’ becomes a part of the gene. That kid could be you. That kid could be me. This is the kid that moves through life with a sense of zero accomplishment even when that may not be the case.
How is this problem fixed?
I heard this somewhere and it made sense to me. This is not about thinking positive. It is about working with a sense of gratitude; and gratitude is a word I go back to very often. That is to say you are thankful for whatever you have now, but we just can’t stagnate here. Always grateful, but never enough.
“Fantastic that I outperformed 35 others in class. Superb! But how can I get to number 1?”
And mom, when the child falls, you don’t shoot the shoot the wounded.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
The great big Indian Wedding just got smaller
There’s no denying that love is in the air. Matchmakers are in business. Families are buzzing with excitement this season with someone in it readying to tie the nuptial knot. What is that one thing that, maybe besides organizing logistics for the wedding (and finding a partner) that takes up maximum time? I believe it’s got to be the invitations. House after house: your first cousin’s wife’s third sister’s Labrador will be pissed if he’s not invited in person.
I think I’ve got some news. The times are changing. An average Indian Wedding would have around 500 to 600 guests. But an average wedding in the west would have only a few dozen people. Doesn’t the difference seem striking? May be the roots go back to our ‘joint family’ system, where an average family consisted at least 10 members. So, assuming that the guy’s family and the girl’s family each had 10 people, that makes it 20 in the first circle. These two families had 5 other extended families with an average of 10 in each. That means, about 100 in the second circle. Let us say that each person in the initial 20 knew 20 others (friends, acquaintances etc.) That makes it a straight 400. Btw, these numbers are rather conservative in south India. So, 600 people at a wedding is really no big deal.
You may be going, “What’s the frequency, Kenneth?” I’ll tell you what the frequency is.In twenty years time (at max), Indian weddings will have only a few dozen guests just like their Western counterparts. I got an e-mail invite this morning from a distant friend. Now, I know what that means: I am on her guest list; but I am not worth the pain and trouble of a phone call or a personal invite because we don’t know each other well enough. And so, I won’t show up at the wedding because I know she really doesn’t want me there. Extend this to the hundreds of people that have received her e-mail invite. I’d be shocked if anyone turns up.
In this way, we keep playing this game of invites through e-mails, blogs and worse still, orkut and facebook posts. Slowly, down the line, the numbers at Indian weddings will keep reducing. My generation is far less attached to its second circle of family than my mother’s generation anyways. I have first cousins whose name I don’t know. Extrapolate this over 10, 15 and 20 years. I think my assumption is safe. Weddings will cost far lesser; and we’ll manage to keep the noise out.
I think I’ve got some news. The times are changing. An average Indian Wedding would have around 500 to 600 guests. But an average wedding in the west would have only a few dozen people. Doesn’t the difference seem striking? May be the roots go back to our ‘joint family’ system, where an average family consisted at least 10 members. So, assuming that the guy’s family and the girl’s family each had 10 people, that makes it 20 in the first circle. These two families had 5 other extended families with an average of 10 in each. That means, about 100 in the second circle. Let us say that each person in the initial 20 knew 20 others (friends, acquaintances etc.) That makes it a straight 400. Btw, these numbers are rather conservative in south India. So, 600 people at a wedding is really no big deal.
You may be going, “What’s the frequency, Kenneth?” I’ll tell you what the frequency is.In twenty years time (at max), Indian weddings will have only a few dozen guests just like their Western counterparts. I got an e-mail invite this morning from a distant friend. Now, I know what that means: I am on her guest list; but I am not worth the pain and trouble of a phone call or a personal invite because we don’t know each other well enough. And so, I won’t show up at the wedding because I know she really doesn’t want me there. Extend this to the hundreds of people that have received her e-mail invite. I’d be shocked if anyone turns up.
In this way, we keep playing this game of invites through e-mails, blogs and worse still, orkut and facebook posts. Slowly, down the line, the numbers at Indian weddings will keep reducing. My generation is far less attached to its second circle of family than my mother’s generation anyways. I have first cousins whose name I don’t know. Extrapolate this over 10, 15 and 20 years. I think my assumption is safe. Weddings will cost far lesser; and we’ll manage to keep the noise out.
Saturday, July 5, 2008
A Gate-a-way.
It's been almost a week now since the celebrated Chairman of Microsoft, Bill Gates stepped down from office. As an aspiring entrepreneur myself, I have always kept my ears open to the words that spring out of his mouth every now and then. Like many great men of the previous centuries whose words continue to be quoted long after they're gone, Gates will be be no exception.
There's little that remains unsaid of his scholastic, professional and financial genius; and Blogger wouldn't bail me out if I were jailed for repeating it. For a couple of days now, I have been keeping myself busy with Robert Heilbroner's The Worldly Philosophers. An interesting incidence that points out repeatedly in this book, and even as History has put into spotlight: there are always the theorists, and there are the practical men. Theorists will 'study' patterns and trends and show light into the way of the future. That is how consultants have always earned their bread and butter in any field. No one better than Peter Drucker in Management Circles and futurist Alvin Tofler pop up into my head here. I haven't read of much of Drucker myself; but the number of volumes that carry his name on the cover page across the book shelves of the world speak for themselves of the guru. I personally adore, respect, follow and worship Alvin Tofler. Call this clan as Toflerians, but if the previous sentence made you want to jump out of the window for lack of comprehension, I would at least urge you to read The Third Wave (one of the most influential books of the last century) before doing so. But Bill Gates would figure ahead of the two gentlemen. Having opened the doors of the information age, he has always operated ahead of the rest of the world by at least 5 to 10 years. What does that mean?
The 5 to 10 years window is not necessarily in the sense of a visionary. Most men/women that have achieved anything significant in life have all been visionaries. Bill Gates, as of today, can say what exactly technology will look like in some years from now. Picture this as the look out in a ship standing atop the sails and warning people on the deck know of what lies ahead. And the man is pin point accurate to what he says. Having started out as a programmer, he went on to play a sales man pitching the world to buy into his software, then built a strong business system and provided super leadership. Besides this, he's donned on other caps as a successful investor. an economist (he's a regular face at the World Economic Forum in Davos annually), a futurist, a writer and more recently as a philanthropist. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is far bigger than the Rockefellers' or the Fords'. In charity size does not matter, but then, it matters.
He deserves all the accolades that have been bestowed on him. Thanks Bill for the new age! I'm proud to have lived on this earth at a time that he did.
There's little that remains unsaid of his scholastic, professional and financial genius; and Blogger wouldn't bail me out if I were jailed for repeating it. For a couple of days now, I have been keeping myself busy with Robert Heilbroner's The Worldly Philosophers. An interesting incidence that points out repeatedly in this book, and even as History has put into spotlight: there are always the theorists, and there are the practical men. Theorists will 'study' patterns and trends and show light into the way of the future. That is how consultants have always earned their bread and butter in any field. No one better than Peter Drucker in Management Circles and futurist Alvin Tofler pop up into my head here. I haven't read of much of Drucker myself; but the number of volumes that carry his name on the cover page across the book shelves of the world speak for themselves of the guru. I personally adore, respect, follow and worship Alvin Tofler. Call this clan as Toflerians, but if the previous sentence made you want to jump out of the window for lack of comprehension, I would at least urge you to read The Third Wave (one of the most influential books of the last century) before doing so. But Bill Gates would figure ahead of the two gentlemen. Having opened the doors of the information age, he has always operated ahead of the rest of the world by at least 5 to 10 years. What does that mean?
The 5 to 10 years window is not necessarily in the sense of a visionary. Most men/women that have achieved anything significant in life have all been visionaries. Bill Gates, as of today, can say what exactly technology will look like in some years from now. Picture this as the look out in a ship standing atop the sails and warning people on the deck know of what lies ahead. And the man is pin point accurate to what he says. Having started out as a programmer, he went on to play a sales man pitching the world to buy into his software, then built a strong business system and provided super leadership. Besides this, he's donned on other caps as a successful investor. an economist (he's a regular face at the World Economic Forum in Davos annually), a futurist, a writer and more recently as a philanthropist. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is far bigger than the Rockefellers' or the Fords'. In charity size does not matter, but then, it matters.
He deserves all the accolades that have been bestowed on him. Thanks Bill for the new age! I'm proud to have lived on this earth at a time that he did.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
On a Kaalej
Towards the last week of my college days, I went around the place saying 'This is the end of my formal education'. Anyone who heard this reacted in either of these 2 ways: a) They'd give a shaky nervous laugh and stop it at that or b) They'd shoot back with 'So, you won't be studying any further?'
To the second reaction, I would say 'No, I won't be studying for another formal degree.' From that reply, the talk would spiral into the mis-consequences of my irrational decision. Everyone's doing it; so how can you afford not to? All along, we have learnt to take a pro-Napoleanic no-nonsense view towards higher education, and this is true for most of us. But that is not the point of the discussion here. It is in my interest to take something that the reader already knows about college and package it around in a never before seen wrapping.
A new perspective
At the Fresher’s orientation in the Mechanical Engineering Department where I studied at NIT Hamirpur, the Head walked up on stage and said to all of us present there: “How many of you ended up here by choice? And how many came here by chance?” For the first time, we understood the difference between the two C-words.
In engineering admission circles, there is a dogma that one branch of engineering is 'better' than another. What with the definition of 'better' being so loose, it took a while to realise that the world needed both windows and bridges. And all of a sudden things began making more sense. Typically, an Indian kid gets into college largely due to pressure (like IITian writer Chetan Bhagat says). And as we know very well, what is being taught inside classrooms is rather uni-dimensional. When a friend of mine moved into the hostel at 18 years of age, his dad said to him “This is where you will become man from a boy”. For starters, he shed off his baby moustache and the rest of the story was true to the last word. My mother paid for my college. Like most parents who pay for their child's education, expectations were all always there. And like a dutiful son, I wished to carry out my mother's dreams to the best of my ability. But as my student years rolled on, I realised that the tuition fees that were paid for the academics actually gave me little in terms of value addition. It is what wasn't paid for that taught a lot more.
Backpacking to nearby places was favourite pastime. The thrill of getting into a horrible rickety bus and riding along the hilly roads and throwing up thrice in 2 hours was good fun! Well, not really the puking part, but the rest of it was. Settling down in cheap stinky rooms to save cash to try English cigars that cost a bomb were all a part of an experience I call unconventional education. Shoe-string travel would never be that much fun ever again. Keeping 'udhar' with the canteen wala and avoiding him, taking pangaas with seniors and hoping they won't catch you and pulp you, breaking window panes playing football in the corridors, asking for money from home each time and clearing out last time's debts with it; and yet managing to keep enough cash to buy a bottle of RS for the weekend are reasons to experience college life. You learn almost all the technical know-how they teach you in the classes almost anywhere, But there aren't very many places to experience the stuff you just read about.
Continuing education Post College
Everyone wants to get ahead at the end of the day, and wants to get there soon. Many of us are ambitious, a few are in hot water and we need to get out of it soon. Some just want to prove a point to somebody that didn't believe in them. A college degree is very important. But if truth be told, it is nothing more than a sheepskin. You might learn the technical stuff in there, but the skill set necessary to lead a fulfilling life will never be taught at school. If you are fortunate enough, there might be a great mentor in a teacher willing to help you out. But that's if you are fortunate.
Understanding humans, gathering success principles, effective living, learning ways to handle money, public issues, charity, growing mentally and spiritually and even maintain a stress free and a healthy life style are the least of which one would need to go through life and they were never even discussed at college or school. Instead we learnt math, sociology and thermodynamics. Giving back to the family that supported you, the society that defined you, the alma mater that gave you an identity, giving to a cause you believe in or to the people that really need it: all of this encompasses continuing education. There are hundreds of places imparting higher education. Few schools, if not none, impart continuing education.
Saying “My formal education ends now” is just a more radical way of saying “my continuing education begins now”.
Go to college, but get out of there soon!
To the second reaction, I would say 'No, I won't be studying for another formal degree.' From that reply, the talk would spiral into the mis-consequences of my irrational decision. Everyone's doing it; so how can you afford not to? All along, we have learnt to take a pro-Napoleanic no-nonsense view towards higher education, and this is true for most of us. But that is not the point of the discussion here. It is in my interest to take something that the reader already knows about college and package it around in a never before seen wrapping.
A new perspective
At the Fresher’s orientation in the Mechanical Engineering Department where I studied at NIT Hamirpur, the Head walked up on stage and said to all of us present there: “How many of you ended up here by choice? And how many came here by chance?” For the first time, we understood the difference between the two C-words.
In engineering admission circles, there is a dogma that one branch of engineering is 'better' than another. What with the definition of 'better' being so loose, it took a while to realise that the world needed both windows and bridges. And all of a sudden things began making more sense. Typically, an Indian kid gets into college largely due to pressure (like IITian writer Chetan Bhagat says). And as we know very well, what is being taught inside classrooms is rather uni-dimensional. When a friend of mine moved into the hostel at 18 years of age, his dad said to him “This is where you will become man from a boy”. For starters, he shed off his baby moustache and the rest of the story was true to the last word. My mother paid for my college. Like most parents who pay for their child's education, expectations were all always there. And like a dutiful son, I wished to carry out my mother's dreams to the best of my ability. But as my student years rolled on, I realised that the tuition fees that were paid for the academics actually gave me little in terms of value addition. It is what wasn't paid for that taught a lot more.
Backpacking to nearby places was favourite pastime. The thrill of getting into a horrible rickety bus and riding along the hilly roads and throwing up thrice in 2 hours was good fun! Well, not really the puking part, but the rest of it was. Settling down in cheap stinky rooms to save cash to try English cigars that cost a bomb were all a part of an experience I call unconventional education. Shoe-string travel would never be that much fun ever again. Keeping 'udhar' with the canteen wala and avoiding him, taking pangaas with seniors and hoping they won't catch you and pulp you, breaking window panes playing football in the corridors, asking for money from home each time and clearing out last time's debts with it; and yet managing to keep enough cash to buy a bottle of RS for the weekend are reasons to experience college life. You learn almost all the technical know-how they teach you in the classes almost anywhere, But there aren't very many places to experience the stuff you just read about.
Continuing education Post College
Everyone wants to get ahead at the end of the day, and wants to get there soon. Many of us are ambitious, a few are in hot water and we need to get out of it soon. Some just want to prove a point to somebody that didn't believe in them. A college degree is very important. But if truth be told, it is nothing more than a sheepskin. You might learn the technical stuff in there, but the skill set necessary to lead a fulfilling life will never be taught at school. If you are fortunate enough, there might be a great mentor in a teacher willing to help you out. But that's if you are fortunate.
Understanding humans, gathering success principles, effective living, learning ways to handle money, public issues, charity, growing mentally and spiritually and even maintain a stress free and a healthy life style are the least of which one would need to go through life and they were never even discussed at college or school. Instead we learnt math, sociology and thermodynamics. Giving back to the family that supported you, the society that defined you, the alma mater that gave you an identity, giving to a cause you believe in or to the people that really need it: all of this encompasses continuing education. There are hundreds of places imparting higher education. Few schools, if not none, impart continuing education.
Saying “My formal education ends now” is just a more radical way of saying “my continuing education begins now”.
Go to college, but get out of there soon!
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Brain gain
I have been glued to this one book for the last couple of days. It's called The Tipping Point, written by Malcolm Gladwell. Most of us have probably come across the title while flipping through book reviews, or seen it on sidewalks (a pity that they give Landmark a run for its money). Malcolm Gladwell does a wonderful job in explaining why major trend changes often times happen within small time frames, as with the case of the sudden rise in popularity of the Hush Puppies footwear brand in the USA in the mid-90's. Keeping it short, Hush Puppies was a brand whose popularity was headed south. Sales were down to 30,000 pairs a year in 1994. But by late 1995- early 96, the brand had resurrected and sales were going through the roof at astronomical 430,000 pairs a year. Astronomical, considering the fact that all those tables turned inside a short span of 2-3 years.
I am still midway through the book. But somewhere along the way I couldn't help but to pause and think about the whole shift in trend in India w.r.t to immigration. The great Indian Dream of the 80's and 90's was so well woven into the public mindset: get a good education, go to 'foreign', get a job (the dollar was fetching 50 bucks back then), live frugally, save up, come home, get married and run back with her and lead a life of apparent significance in Uncle Sam's or Bob' s house. While in middle school, I remember participating in debates where an oft repeated topic was that of Brain drain: boon or bane, so to state. Writers, statesmen, industrialists and academics wrote and debated on this issue at length. Somehow, everyone was focused on fixing 'Brain drain'. In a doctor's tongue, brain drain itself wasn't the problem. It was the symptom of the problem. And the problem was economic growth. We were seeing ridiculous growth rates of 3 and 4 percent all through the 90's. For a developing economy, 3 percent could get us as far as the neighbour's compound. And for those who wanted to leapfrog on to the fast track, India was just not the vehicle. In retrospect, the government back then could have done little to keep these men and women from boarding flights to greener pastures.
And what has heppened now? Inside a short 4 to 5 years, post 2002-03, everything has been reversed. The same people who ran away are now coming back. Youngsters, like you and me, have realised that the go to US-drive a second hand Ford-stay there forever isn't such a good deal to get rich after all. The dollar's losing ground to the rupee. And 9% for India is like 'duh!'. KV Kamath, MD of ICICI Bank believes that the next 20 years (at least) will see India growing. Will there be fluctuations ahead? Of course. But will we stop moving ahead? Of course not.
If you happen to be typically in your early twenties, here's a wise thing to do. Get an education. Stay in India. Find a suitable employer (they are easier to find than you might think). But besides working 9 to 5, build a business part time. You might think, why? The answer very simply is that if there is anyway that you can participate and claim a slice of the Indian growth story, it is by owning a business and creating investments. To create strong investments requires knowledge of the business domain. Renowned personal finance guru Robert Kiyosaki talks about how employees investments' and those of business men are greatly different. You would want to get the best of both worlds, I presume. Work-build a business-invest in India should ideally be your mantra for the forthcoming years in your career. Does that mean the plan of going abroad as in the 80's and 90's is redundant? In all the probability, the answer is yes. But we won't have another debate on Brain gain:boon or bane.
I am still midway through the book. But somewhere along the way I couldn't help but to pause and think about the whole shift in trend in India w.r.t to immigration. The great Indian Dream of the 80's and 90's was so well woven into the public mindset: get a good education, go to 'foreign', get a job (the dollar was fetching 50 bucks back then), live frugally, save up, come home, get married and run back with her and lead a life of apparent significance in Uncle Sam's or Bob' s house. While in middle school, I remember participating in debates where an oft repeated topic was that of Brain drain: boon or bane, so to state. Writers, statesmen, industrialists and academics wrote and debated on this issue at length. Somehow, everyone was focused on fixing 'Brain drain'. In a doctor's tongue, brain drain itself wasn't the problem. It was the symptom of the problem. And the problem was economic growth. We were seeing ridiculous growth rates of 3 and 4 percent all through the 90's. For a developing economy, 3 percent could get us as far as the neighbour's compound. And for those who wanted to leapfrog on to the fast track, India was just not the vehicle. In retrospect, the government back then could have done little to keep these men and women from boarding flights to greener pastures.
And what has heppened now? Inside a short 4 to 5 years, post 2002-03, everything has been reversed. The same people who ran away are now coming back. Youngsters, like you and me, have realised that the go to US-drive a second hand Ford-stay there forever isn't such a good deal to get rich after all. The dollar's losing ground to the rupee. And 9% for India is like 'duh!'. KV Kamath, MD of ICICI Bank believes that the next 20 years (at least) will see India growing. Will there be fluctuations ahead? Of course. But will we stop moving ahead? Of course not.
If you happen to be typically in your early twenties, here's a wise thing to do. Get an education. Stay in India. Find a suitable employer (they are easier to find than you might think). But besides working 9 to 5, build a business part time. You might think, why? The answer very simply is that if there is anyway that you can participate and claim a slice of the Indian growth story, it is by owning a business and creating investments. To create strong investments requires knowledge of the business domain. Renowned personal finance guru Robert Kiyosaki talks about how employees investments' and those of business men are greatly different. You would want to get the best of both worlds, I presume. Work-build a business-invest in India should ideally be your mantra for the forthcoming years in your career. Does that mean the plan of going abroad as in the 80's and 90's is redundant? In all the probability, the answer is yes. But we won't have another debate on Brain gain:boon or bane.
Sunday, December 2, 2007
The Teacher and the Taught
Recent happenings in the Mechanical Department at NIT Hamirpur haven't been too pretty (read: the 3 hours of Dynamics of Machinery finals). I wouldn't like to go very deep into the intricacies of the whole matter for privacy's sake, but it is a larger habit at hand that concerns me as a student.
A vast majority of students treat their Profs as enemies. In the early days, I didn't quite subscribe to that train of thought. The education system posed certain demands and teachers were mere messengers executing the task at hand. But what I failed to recognise then was that even this execution was an art form; which is why someone like Dr. Anoop Kumar, Dean, Students' Welfare and Alumni Affairs was so looked up to by his students while some lesser mortals couldn't be cared for any lesser.
Of all the ingredients that makes up one's character, one feature that clearly separates the wheat from the chaff is the ability to think from the other person's shoes. A teacher shouts at a student for being 2 minutes late to class. Question: How many times in the Teacher's student career did he enter his class on time? Teachers talk of copying in examinations as if it were a sinful act of crime. Now, by no means am I suggesting they advocate copying, My argument is very simply that the same people who have been through what we are going through react to similar situations in a way that is totally detached. This is the same way every adolescent thinks that his/her parents were never adolescents. The connection is simply missing. I'm forced to believe that these 'people' who teach me today were never really students at any point of time in their lives. Somehow, they came into this world with a sash that said 'Teacher'.
It is here again that I go into my bag of thoughts and pull out what Dr. Anoop once said, that any position must be treated as position of responsibility, and not as a position of power. Our not-so-democratic education system has still kept the teacher on a higher pedestal of power than the student. And it is a shame to see some people thriving off this power, or simply put, living off the virtue of the students' weakness. Who is teaching and who is learning? Maybe some role reversal could help.
A vast majority of students treat their Profs as enemies. In the early days, I didn't quite subscribe to that train of thought. The education system posed certain demands and teachers were mere messengers executing the task at hand. But what I failed to recognise then was that even this execution was an art form; which is why someone like Dr. Anoop Kumar, Dean, Students' Welfare and Alumni Affairs was so looked up to by his students while some lesser mortals couldn't be cared for any lesser.
Of all the ingredients that makes up one's character, one feature that clearly separates the wheat from the chaff is the ability to think from the other person's shoes. A teacher shouts at a student for being 2 minutes late to class. Question: How many times in the Teacher's student career did he enter his class on time? Teachers talk of copying in examinations as if it were a sinful act of crime. Now, by no means am I suggesting they advocate copying, My argument is very simply that the same people who have been through what we are going through react to similar situations in a way that is totally detached. This is the same way every adolescent thinks that his/her parents were never adolescents. The connection is simply missing. I'm forced to believe that these 'people' who teach me today were never really students at any point of time in their lives. Somehow, they came into this world with a sash that said 'Teacher'.
It is here again that I go into my bag of thoughts and pull out what Dr. Anoop once said, that any position must be treated as position of responsibility, and not as a position of power. Our not-so-democratic education system has still kept the teacher on a higher pedestal of power than the student. And it is a shame to see some people thriving off this power, or simply put, living off the virtue of the students' weakness. Who is teaching and who is learning? Maybe some role reversal could help.
Monday, September 3, 2007
CONVERGENCE
I noticed it first when Pratik bought a Pim-Pom lollipop from Uncle ji's dukan. This was a simple and non-threatening dollop of flavoured sugar enclosing a chewing gum, both supported on a thin stick (if you haven't tried the Pim-pom, go do that). This lollipop is testimonial to a whole new wave of societal change that we are at the outset of experiencing. The change that I'm referring to is convergence.
In a layman's language, convergence is the combination of multiple unrelated fields to solve a common purpose. The case of Pimpom can be analysed thus: there are people who like lollipops; and there are people who like chewing gums. If the two products can be combined to give one single product, the target group of customers is simply a little less than the union of the 2 sets of initial customers. Hence, for the manufacturers of Pimpom, the customer base has risen all of a sudden just by placing the gum at the centre of the lollipop.
On a slightly advanced level, convergence shows up with the rise of the Prosumer. Since Adam Smith, economics has always been studied treating the producer and the consumer as separate entities driving the market system. With the onset of the information age (thereby driving the digital revolution and forcing in the cyber world), convergence of the producer and the consumer is starting to show up across various layers of society. In the near future, it will become essential for us to 'produce' a part of what we are to 'consume'. Take the whole concept of a self-service restaurant. A conventional restaurant might make the best noodles in town. But the noodles is not really is the product the restauranter is selling. The restaurant is not in the noodles business; it is in the service business. The guy who makes the noodles and the guy who serves them at the table and gives you the check at the end of the meal are both 'producers' of the service which is being 'consumed' by you and me, the customers.
In a self service restaurant, the definition of service becomes slightly skewed. True, the guy inside still makes the noodles. But the customer is required to walk up to the counter and pick up his order. Effectively, a part of the service production is shifted back to the consumer. As a result the cost that he incur es on the noodles should be lesser than if he were served. Similarly, across every field of the economy today, we see the rise of the prosumer happening. It is only a matter of time before we stop talking about 'production' and 'consumption' as separate terms and start talking of a new converged activity called 'prosumption'. Will supply-demand economics apply to prosumtion? Yes. And no. However, we will need the laws of economics altered to fit this evolving mould.
In academia, our universities run degrees in sciences (BSc), arts (BA), engineering (B.Tech/BE), commerce (B.Com), architecture (B.Arch) and many others. These are field specific. It is expected that an individual completing a B.Com degree will go on to become a banker or a CA and serve his base of clients in that domain. Reading the problem backwards, it is expected that a client(consumer) will go to the banker(producer) for fulfilling his financial services. Or in other words, the consumer is being domain specific and expects the banker to do nothing more than fill out his loan application or manage his assets. But the prosumer of tomorrow is not that domain specific. He would walk up to one single person and expect the latter to fill out his loan application, take his pulse rate and help him find a copy of Don Quixote off the book shelf. This would immediately imply that the latter would have to be educated in multiple disciplines. And this is something that the education system will have to evolve out of need. In the future, we might see a student specialising in accountancy, bio-sciences, literature and cooking - all covered under one degree. We just don't know what we would call such a person. Maybe the degree would be a B.ConS, as in Bachelors in Converging Studies!
In a layman's language, convergence is the combination of multiple unrelated fields to solve a common purpose. The case of Pimpom can be analysed thus: there are people who like lollipops; and there are people who like chewing gums. If the two products can be combined to give one single product, the target group of customers is simply a little less than the union of the 2 sets of initial customers. Hence, for the manufacturers of Pimpom, the customer base has risen all of a sudden just by placing the gum at the centre of the lollipop.
On a slightly advanced level, convergence shows up with the rise of the Prosumer. Since Adam Smith, economics has always been studied treating the producer and the consumer as separate entities driving the market system. With the onset of the information age (thereby driving the digital revolution and forcing in the cyber world), convergence of the producer and the consumer is starting to show up across various layers of society. In the near future, it will become essential for us to 'produce' a part of what we are to 'consume'. Take the whole concept of a self-service restaurant. A conventional restaurant might make the best noodles in town. But the noodles is not really is the product the restauranter is selling. The restaurant is not in the noodles business; it is in the service business. The guy who makes the noodles and the guy who serves them at the table and gives you the check at the end of the meal are both 'producers' of the service which is being 'consumed' by you and me, the customers.
In a self service restaurant, the definition of service becomes slightly skewed. True, the guy inside still makes the noodles. But the customer is required to walk up to the counter and pick up his order. Effectively, a part of the service production is shifted back to the consumer. As a result the cost that he incur es on the noodles should be lesser than if he were served. Similarly, across every field of the economy today, we see the rise of the prosumer happening. It is only a matter of time before we stop talking about 'production' and 'consumption' as separate terms and start talking of a new converged activity called 'prosumption'. Will supply-demand economics apply to prosumtion? Yes. And no. However, we will need the laws of economics altered to fit this evolving mould.
In academia, our universities run degrees in sciences (BSc), arts (BA), engineering (B.Tech/BE), commerce (B.Com), architecture (B.Arch) and many others. These are field specific. It is expected that an individual completing a B.Com degree will go on to become a banker or a CA and serve his base of clients in that domain. Reading the problem backwards, it is expected that a client(consumer) will go to the banker(producer) for fulfilling his financial services. Or in other words, the consumer is being domain specific and expects the banker to do nothing more than fill out his loan application or manage his assets. But the prosumer of tomorrow is not that domain specific. He would walk up to one single person and expect the latter to fill out his loan application, take his pulse rate and help him find a copy of Don Quixote off the book shelf. This would immediately imply that the latter would have to be educated in multiple disciplines. And this is something that the education system will have to evolve out of need. In the future, we might see a student specialising in accountancy, bio-sciences, literature and cooking - all covered under one degree. We just don't know what we would call such a person. Maybe the degree would be a B.ConS, as in Bachelors in Converging Studies!
Saturday, August 4, 2007
Nuts in an Eggshell
Bill, Larry, Sergey and Murthy are among the few who have exemplified this cult that’s growing at rate faster than the much talked about Indian GDP. Here’s a lighter look at an oft-plagiarized Indian version of the tale.
PROLOGUE:
India’s obsession with degrees is well known the world over. If you were to stand on a street corner and throw a stone, chances are a little over 13.6 (after much calculation) out of 10 that it would hit a person with the letters next to his name. Stats may seldom fail to impress, but how would you possibly break down the ‘technical + business knowledge’ mantra of the new millennium?
An IITian friend of mine openly declares- “I’m technically challenged.” To say the very least, there are plenty of these ‘differently abled’ fish swimming back and forth in the technical pool. But then, the only fish that do swim with the flow of the stream are the dead ones! We have arrived from hiding, the TCs (Technically Challenged) cry out loud. The cult is growing, and a community on the Orkut web site is the proof. The time is probably ripe for the Indian Government to issue licenses to start ‘institutes of technology for the technically challenged’. These institutes would not need labs, obviously. The sole requirements would be classrooms, a few dispersed chalks and yes, MBA aspirants (Beer and Business Administrators alike) to fill up the benches. Like any other disease, TC also comes with its set of symptoms. So who do you think you are?
1)You know the types of brakes, parts of a brake, are a mechanical engineer, the composition of the brake material and the forces acting on the brake pads. But when you sit on a bike, you guess between the front and the rear brakes.
2)You think that The Tower of Hanoi is a tower in Hanoi (Courtesy: Microsoft).
3)As an electrical engineer you can draw and label circuit diagrams faster than current can flow through it. You pick up the phone and call the electrician to fix the geyser.
4)You classify chips as junk food.
Due to constraints in space, we have withheld any further instances. For the complete list of the 4267 disabilities, refer Volumes 3 and 4 of Eggs in a Nutshell.
[In case you answered ‘yes’ to any of the above 4 instances, please make a bold assumption that you could be classified a TC.]
EPILOGUE:
The new age investment banker is truly a jack-of-all-trades. He is not only in the top 2% of the MBA entrance exam crackers; he also features in the top 50% of the engineering entrance exam crackers. A beer guzzling globe trotting fella, he boasts of a 4 yr vacation he took when the wind blew him through the technical course. Sadly so, that didn’t happen in business studies, he admits. While he conditioned himself to talk to lathes and computers while on vacation, what came as a rude awakening was that business required talking to people! Our man can also be seen living in a swanky 3-bed room apartment (fully furnished with an Air Conditioner), wears Jockey inners and Nike outers, owns an American Express and drives around in a Ford. After a couple of years of hard work, the technically baked business pie is ready to lay rubber on the tarmac for the next 35 years. A hop, skip and a jump away to the next big paycheck (with the tax deductions in mind), our man has successfully combined obsolete and irrelevant technical knowledge with business know how. The Great Indian Corporate Czar is in the making (breaking).
Elsewhere, at the Daimler Chrysler headquarters in Germany, a man in his 30s is hard at work on the Merc SL 600. Further insight reveals he is a PhD. in Fuel Injection Systems. “As a PhD, don’t you find it rather bizarre working in a garage”, we ask.
“I wanted to work in this garage. So I had to do a PhD.” he says with a smile, in his
heavy German accent.
(appeared in Srijan 2006, the annual mag of NIT-H)
PROLOGUE:
India’s obsession with degrees is well known the world over. If you were to stand on a street corner and throw a stone, chances are a little over 13.6 (after much calculation) out of 10 that it would hit a person with the letters next to his name. Stats may seldom fail to impress, but how would you possibly break down the ‘technical + business knowledge’ mantra of the new millennium?
An IITian friend of mine openly declares- “I’m technically challenged.” To say the very least, there are plenty of these ‘differently abled’ fish swimming back and forth in the technical pool. But then, the only fish that do swim with the flow of the stream are the dead ones! We have arrived from hiding, the TCs (Technically Challenged) cry out loud. The cult is growing, and a community on the Orkut web site is the proof. The time is probably ripe for the Indian Government to issue licenses to start ‘institutes of technology for the technically challenged’. These institutes would not need labs, obviously. The sole requirements would be classrooms, a few dispersed chalks and yes, MBA aspirants (Beer and Business Administrators alike) to fill up the benches. Like any other disease, TC also comes with its set of symptoms. So who do you think you are?
1)You know the types of brakes, parts of a brake, are a mechanical engineer, the composition of the brake material and the forces acting on the brake pads. But when you sit on a bike, you guess between the front and the rear brakes.
2)You think that The Tower of Hanoi is a tower in Hanoi (Courtesy: Microsoft).
3)As an electrical engineer you can draw and label circuit diagrams faster than current can flow through it. You pick up the phone and call the electrician to fix the geyser.
4)You classify chips as junk food.
Due to constraints in space, we have withheld any further instances. For the complete list of the 4267 disabilities, refer Volumes 3 and 4 of Eggs in a Nutshell.
[In case you answered ‘yes’ to any of the above 4 instances, please make a bold assumption that you could be classified a TC.]
EPILOGUE:
The new age investment banker is truly a jack-of-all-trades. He is not only in the top 2% of the MBA entrance exam crackers; he also features in the top 50% of the engineering entrance exam crackers. A beer guzzling globe trotting fella, he boasts of a 4 yr vacation he took when the wind blew him through the technical course. Sadly so, that didn’t happen in business studies, he admits. While he conditioned himself to talk to lathes and computers while on vacation, what came as a rude awakening was that business required talking to people! Our man can also be seen living in a swanky 3-bed room apartment (fully furnished with an Air Conditioner), wears Jockey inners and Nike outers, owns an American Express and drives around in a Ford. After a couple of years of hard work, the technically baked business pie is ready to lay rubber on the tarmac for the next 35 years. A hop, skip and a jump away to the next big paycheck (with the tax deductions in mind), our man has successfully combined obsolete and irrelevant technical knowledge with business know how. The Great Indian Corporate Czar is in the making (breaking).
Elsewhere, at the Daimler Chrysler headquarters in Germany, a man in his 30s is hard at work on the Merc SL 600. Further insight reveals he is a PhD. in Fuel Injection Systems. “As a PhD, don’t you find it rather bizarre working in a garage”, we ask.
“I wanted to work in this garage. So I had to do a PhD.” he says with a smile, in his
heavy German accent.
(appeared in Srijan 2006, the annual mag of NIT-H)
Saturday, July 21, 2007
In the name of God
Politics and religion are two of the most touchy issues one can write about. From ages long gone to eras to come, these two subjects have been fodder for mayhem; even throwing so called 'stable' societies(if they ever existed) completely out of gear.
There is a reason why God is written with a capital G. Whether or not you happen to be believe in Him (notice the capital H), it is undeniable that the Good Lord's (pay attention to the G and the L) name is never taken in vain. At-least not in the land of milk and honey. As I vacation in my home town of Bengaluru (alas!), I just can't seem to ignore the fact that He (the H) is being invoked for everything from driving away way side 'urinators' to making a living. Call it cashing in on fear, guilt or anything that works for you, but it all ultimately boils down to the fact that dropping Names (N is intentionally made capital) works in India.
As I begin walking from 10th cross Malleswaram, a little girl walks up to me with a framed photograph of a God in her hand complete with a little lamp in a plate that's lit in the bright of the day. She's not begging, mind you. She's 'collecting' money. Or that's as lenient as I can be with my judgement. I spare her a buck, in the holy name. 'She's not begging, she's not begging', I keep telling myself after she's gone. At-least the Gods won't be crazy at me. As I walk further down towards 9th cross, I see this: a lady whipping herself while the man with her is dressed as a God and actually has a metal stick pierced through his cheeks playing a distant cousin of the snare drum. Again, they aren't begging.I have not much for them. By the time I am at cross number 5, just when I think He has had it, I spot a bunch of kids dressed as mythical figures from Ramayana making noise as they are going around from shop to shop. At first I'm forced to think that this is a bunch of a fancy dress event escapees. But the coins in their little hands tells me that they are not begging.
I need to pick up groceries that evening. I head to cross 8, Malleswaram's shopping heaven. What I see there takes the wind out of my sails. At regualr spacings on either sides of the road along the footpath are men holding a plate of burning camphor (aarthi) ringing away the bell continuously. While this activity is common in temples, it normally lasts for a couple of minutes at the max. But I stood there watching this go on for a complete 15 minutes, and then I had to force a quit as I could not get myself to watch the show any more. But hey, they weren't begging. It's all in the name of God!
On the 4th cross, a narrow by-lane leads to the bonda angadi from the main road. This was the pee-heaven. This was the Nirmala of Malleswaram. But guess what the BMP did? They swooped in, cleaned the place and to prevent this pee sport from continuing, they put up photos of Gods on tiles along the entire stretch of the street! Call that a smart move. I'm yet to hear of a man who has summoned up enough courage to empty it on that street ever since.
There is a reason why God is written with a capital G. Whether or not you happen to be believe in Him (notice the capital H), it is undeniable that the Good Lord's (pay attention to the G and the L) name is never taken in vain. At-least not in the land of milk and honey. As I vacation in my home town of Bengaluru (alas!), I just can't seem to ignore the fact that He (the H) is being invoked for everything from driving away way side 'urinators' to making a living. Call it cashing in on fear, guilt or anything that works for you, but it all ultimately boils down to the fact that dropping Names (N is intentionally made capital) works in India.
As I begin walking from 10th cross Malleswaram, a little girl walks up to me with a framed photograph of a God in her hand complete with a little lamp in a plate that's lit in the bright of the day. She's not begging, mind you. She's 'collecting' money. Or that's as lenient as I can be with my judgement. I spare her a buck, in the holy name. 'She's not begging, she's not begging', I keep telling myself after she's gone. At-least the Gods won't be crazy at me. As I walk further down towards 9th cross, I see this: a lady whipping herself while the man with her is dressed as a God and actually has a metal stick pierced through his cheeks playing a distant cousin of the snare drum. Again, they aren't begging.I have not much for them. By the time I am at cross number 5, just when I think He has had it, I spot a bunch of kids dressed as mythical figures from Ramayana making noise as they are going around from shop to shop. At first I'm forced to think that this is a bunch of a fancy dress event escapees. But the coins in their little hands tells me that they are not begging.
I need to pick up groceries that evening. I head to cross 8, Malleswaram's shopping heaven. What I see there takes the wind out of my sails. At regualr spacings on either sides of the road along the footpath are men holding a plate of burning camphor (aarthi) ringing away the bell continuously. While this activity is common in temples, it normally lasts for a couple of minutes at the max. But I stood there watching this go on for a complete 15 minutes, and then I had to force a quit as I could not get myself to watch the show any more. But hey, they weren't begging. It's all in the name of God!
On the 4th cross, a narrow by-lane leads to the bonda angadi from the main road. This was the pee-heaven. This was the Nirmala of Malleswaram. But guess what the BMP did? They swooped in, cleaned the place and to prevent this pee sport from continuing, they put up photos of Gods on tiles along the entire stretch of the street! Call that a smart move. I'm yet to hear of a man who has summoned up enough courage to empty it on that street ever since.
Monday, July 2, 2007
Globalisation and its effects on youth.
The big G-word is splashed all over the place today. From front pages of newspapers to the back covers of magazines and everwhere else in between, globalisation occurs as more than a mere definition. It is a way of life. A change so profound that it has come ripping through socieites and uprooted the very basics of hierarchy and timeline and put the whole of the 6.5 billion that walk this planet on a level platform. But all of this was not a big overnight BOOM. It happenend while you were up each morning brushing and sipping on coffee. It was happening while you were hanging out with your girl(boy)friend. It will continue to happen as you trip on chilled beer. If something so earth-shaking is moving about us so stealthily, it is worth a minute of our attention.
From a Pan India point of view we can see globalisation operating on three levels:
Win-win state
Win-lose state
lose-lose state
Or simply put, the three levels or states show the consequces that globalisation has had on India with the rest of the world and vice versa. As of now. with 52% plus Indians in their sunny days, it is but obvious that the youth are very detrimental to the course of the world in the years to come.
1) THE WIN-WIN STATE
In English this is what it means - how has globalisation benefitted both the Indian youth and the world's at large. By wiring the whole world on to the www, we have been able to allow movement of information as freely as words flow out of Prathibha Patil's mouth. So information rests at everyone's fingertips. This has been one of the inherent factors that explains the 5 or 6 figure incomes of the 25 somethings, This has meant that there are more people today than 5 or 10 years ago who can afford a better lifestyle than their parents. As a by product of this we are seeing a boom happening across practically every section in the market, from ayurveda to aviation.
A Kannadiga boy working in Hewellet-Packard marries a Mexican girl. And the marriage ceremony is held in the boy's home town in Karnataka; and the girl changes her name form Jessica to Jaya. This would have been a rosy-walk-in-the-park story straight out of Womens' Era in 1995. But in June 2007, it is a newspaper report splashed on the front page of the Deccan Herald. The moral of this story is that you could make a great friend or even find a partner half way across the world without having to move out of your chair. That's a win-win proposition!
2) THE WIN-LOSE STATE
What has the Indian youth gained at the expense of the world, as a result of globalisation? And what has the World gained at the expense of India?
Since globalisation is itself in its youth, only the first of the two questions can be answered as of this point in time. So what did they lose that we gained? The answer to that question lies in the word 'outsourcing', A word that we have come to like and they have begun to detest.
3) THE LOSE-LOSE STATE
What is the down side of a globalising India? Going the G-way has put considerable sums of money and opportunities in the hands of millions of youngsters. What it has failed to provide however is the education on how to manage all that is earned. And consequently, we hear of stress, burnouts, failed marriages and rich credit card companies.
As the youth continue to march along hand in hand with globalisation today, we can't say with any more certainity about the direction of it's progress as we can about Paris Hilton's next big act for being in the news. But maybe someday, we will hear of Raju's and Rani's Pasta corner, Joe's and Jenny's Dosa camp and Chin Yew's Fish and Curry all lined up next to one another on a street in Cairo!
Arjun.B.S
W: bondasoup.wordpess.com
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