Revisiting Times
December... A month when I live mostly in my dreams and thoughts. Perhaps it’s true for everyone. It’s that time of the year when we revisit and introspect the year that’s just gone by and also optimistically think about the year that’s going to arrive in a few days.
Today I was traveling to my field work organization sitting in a corner of a Best bus. The sun was smiling benevolently at me and cold chill morning wind seeping in through the half opened window pane was kissing my face. Unknowingly I started my journey down the memory lane. It soon started throwing up a lot of memoirs just like waves keep lapping up the sands of the beach. I don’t know why, but I thought about my company a lot and more about the people in the organization. Those moments of anxiety that hovered around the delivery date of our projects, those moments of excitement just before attending a party wherein we used to swear that we wont drink to the extend of losing our consciousness and still get drunk to the point that we forget ourselves; those moments of eternal bliss wherein after forgetting everything, we enjoyed the ride back home in a rickshaw(thanks to those n number of rickshaw drivers who safely got us home) where the cold air of the night used to gush in from both the sides making the journey an exhilarating experience.
It was as though a film had started playing. Reels continued to flow in and so were memories.
Those days that we spent at Helen Villa (our house at Thane) where I spent some of the best days of my life, those times when we sued to rush back home and cook food (everyone barring me used to take part in that activity and I used the pretext of going out and getting vegetables for not cooking, the reality being that I hated cutting vegetables) and eat food to our hearts content, those nocturnal visits to the Marine drive wherein we used to sit on the platform facing the sea, spot the ship in the distance and philosophically say “ Sid….tu who jahaaz dekh raha hain…” as though we were the Khans and Khannas of Dil chahta hain musing over our bleak possibility of meeting one another once we leave Bombay.
Well…I could just go on and on…As the main protagonist of Albert Camus Outsider, Meursault who is undergoing a trial says ” Even after a single day’s experience a man could stay in prison for 100 years…” How true, isn’t it? For whiling away time, perhaps one of the best past times could be remembering all those details of the past. The humor of blaming the present and admiring the past is strongly rooted in human nature and has an influence on persons even with the profoundest of judgment. We meet to create memories and we part to preserve them. Well said by Vipul. But here lies the irony. Although these memories could bring a smile on your face quite unconsciously, sometimes they are a pain as you are immediately reminded that those moments can never be recreated. Perhaps, that’s the reason why sometimes I feel that one shouldn’t get attached to any person, place or for that instance to anything and this is what the Eastern philosophy emphasizes on: the principle of non-attachment. But all this is sometimes beyond our control.
I have always been fortunate enough to be with some good people and that legacy continues. Perhaps that’s the reason why all those sweet memories keep lapping up and they do without fail bring a smile unconsciously on your face.
Enjoy the past………Live the present……….Chuck the future….
Monday, December 11, 2006
Friday, November 10, 2006
Some Point No One...
This is a mail which I had sent to my classmates during our vacation..
I missed them badly.......
As I step out of auto and enter the campus, the senior watchman dressed in his khakhi asks me “ Kyun Ram babu, ghar nahi gaye aap”? . I try to dodge his question with my usual tactics..dont really know whether he was convinced. But the sense of naivety in his face told me that he would have been. I walk past the main lounge which was for obvious reasons empty. Images of Mohalla bolta hain and all those regional festivals which used to arouse fervor of festivity flashed across my mind. I march ahead and reach the cross road in front of the library and LH. Parul is busy on her phone talking to ..ehem….cant make any comment on that..u see….I can see Kingshuk, Subrato and their respective KANK families sitting in the lounge and sharing their moments of joy. I can hear them talking loudly in Bangla. In a few seconds, Kingshuk spots me and hides his face….haha…boy he is one person who can make you laugh without doing much…
I see the library and wonder when I will go there. For me, truly it’s a place to visit.
I walk past the phone booth crushing the brownish yellow foliage that had suddenly become ubiquitous, thanks to the autumn season. It seems the crows also had gone on hibernation along with the hostel inmates. The entire ambience was so tacit contrary to the din that usually characterizes the campus.
Finally I enter the Men’s hostel. I seat myself on the raised platform beside the corridor in front of Joseph’s room. Just as it is getting dark I see a motley crowd over there getting ready for some musical extravaganza. Joseph steps out of his room singing the song “ Tere bin..” pointing his finger towards me with a smile. Romida and his roomies join in. Neville glides his fingers over the strings and what we have is perfect harmony. Raghav comes along with his hand brushing his chin. I wonder what he is thinking. Suddenly we spot a beautiful girl coming out of the indoor stadium. I look at Raghav and say that “wow..she is beautiful..” Raghav retorts “ Bhabhi hain teri…”.
I move upstairs and reach room no.18. Its open. I see Goel sahib reading some book on philosophy. Must be some isms…Seeing me, he asks…” prapanchi insaan, kahan tha u..” I throw my bag onto the bed, tell some lie and move out of the room. I knock on the door of room no. 22. “ Khula hain…” shouts Subhashish..I open the door only to find him engrossed in some work of flash. I think I should escape before he asks me for my valuable comments on the artistic piece of work that he has just completed. I move ahead to room no. 25. Major is lying in his bed. Sporting a blue shorts torn at some places that can’t be disclosed, with a fag in one hand and phone in the other, he is engaged in a romantic undertaking.
On hearing the sound of the door opening, JD turns back and sees me. He asks “ Oye BW, aa gaya tu….Aaj raat ka kya plan hain…”
“Abhi tak to kuch nahi…lekin jab plan banega to sabse pehle tumhe bataoonga”, I say.
I come down and sit on the verandah near Joseph’s room. There was no one. No music. No guitar. Everything had become silent. Sensing some sort of vibration, I take out my mobile from my pocket. No. There was no call. I desperately stare into my mobile to see whether any call was coming. I take out a cig from my pocket and light it. There is a plume of smoke around me. The huge tree beside me has cast its shadow…a long spooky one. I desperately try to keep my self awake as I sense there is some kind of danger of intrusion by an enemy whose name is loneliness into my well guarded fort, my mind. I say to myself. Its 30th. Just one more day to go…..
This is a mail which I had sent to my classmates during our vacation..
I missed them badly.......
As I step out of auto and enter the campus, the senior watchman dressed in his khakhi asks me “ Kyun Ram babu, ghar nahi gaye aap”? . I try to dodge his question with my usual tactics..dont really know whether he was convinced. But the sense of naivety in his face told me that he would have been. I walk past the main lounge which was for obvious reasons empty. Images of Mohalla bolta hain and all those regional festivals which used to arouse fervor of festivity flashed across my mind. I march ahead and reach the cross road in front of the library and LH. Parul is busy on her phone talking to ..ehem….cant make any comment on that..u see….I can see Kingshuk, Subrato and their respective KANK families sitting in the lounge and sharing their moments of joy. I can hear them talking loudly in Bangla. In a few seconds, Kingshuk spots me and hides his face….haha…boy he is one person who can make you laugh without doing much…
I see the library and wonder when I will go there. For me, truly it’s a place to visit.
I walk past the phone booth crushing the brownish yellow foliage that had suddenly become ubiquitous, thanks to the autumn season. It seems the crows also had gone on hibernation along with the hostel inmates. The entire ambience was so tacit contrary to the din that usually characterizes the campus.
Finally I enter the Men’s hostel. I seat myself on the raised platform beside the corridor in front of Joseph’s room. Just as it is getting dark I see a motley crowd over there getting ready for some musical extravaganza. Joseph steps out of his room singing the song “ Tere bin..” pointing his finger towards me with a smile. Romida and his roomies join in. Neville glides his fingers over the strings and what we have is perfect harmony. Raghav comes along with his hand brushing his chin. I wonder what he is thinking. Suddenly we spot a beautiful girl coming out of the indoor stadium. I look at Raghav and say that “wow..she is beautiful..” Raghav retorts “ Bhabhi hain teri…”.
I move upstairs and reach room no.18. Its open. I see Goel sahib reading some book on philosophy. Must be some isms…Seeing me, he asks…” prapanchi insaan, kahan tha u..” I throw my bag onto the bed, tell some lie and move out of the room. I knock on the door of room no. 22. “ Khula hain…” shouts Subhashish..I open the door only to find him engrossed in some work of flash. I think I should escape before he asks me for my valuable comments on the artistic piece of work that he has just completed. I move ahead to room no. 25. Major is lying in his bed. Sporting a blue shorts torn at some places that can’t be disclosed, with a fag in one hand and phone in the other, he is engaged in a romantic undertaking.
On hearing the sound of the door opening, JD turns back and sees me. He asks “ Oye BW, aa gaya tu….Aaj raat ka kya plan hain…”
“Abhi tak to kuch nahi…lekin jab plan banega to sabse pehle tumhe bataoonga”, I say.
I come down and sit on the verandah near Joseph’s room. There was no one. No music. No guitar. Everything had become silent. Sensing some sort of vibration, I take out my mobile from my pocket. No. There was no call. I desperately stare into my mobile to see whether any call was coming. I take out a cig from my pocket and light it. There is a plume of smoke around me. The huge tree beside me has cast its shadow…a long spooky one. I desperately try to keep my self awake as I sense there is some kind of danger of intrusion by an enemy whose name is loneliness into my well guarded fort, my mind. I say to myself. Its 30th. Just one more day to go…..
Friday, July 14, 2006
Confused Wisdom
As part of restructuring, TISS has introduced the Foundation courses for its first year students. Students, irrespective of their area of specialization come under one roof to learn the foundation courses which focus mainly on topics like society, social structure, culture, identity, conflicts, idea of nation state etc. I would say that this has perhaps been one of the excellent steps that were taken as part of restructuring. The specialty of TISS is that we get a chance to study with the social work people in the same institute which always gave us a chance to listen to views that were completely divergent from ours which is mostly business oriented. But the foundation courses have actually given us a formal platform where we can hear their views and may be get into some kind of interactive discussions.
Recently, I attended a session on what my close buddy, Rahul jocularly says”Indiaye engane rekshikkam” (How can we save India). To begin with, the debonair lecturer asked us the idea of India we had in our minds. There were a host of replies like unity in diversity, developing nation, poverty among others. Then he asked us what that we find in common among all of us is. Once again there were a flurry of replies like values, traditions etc.
The faculty went on to teach us the idea of India that our great leaders, of the likes of Nehru, Gandhi, Patel, Savarkar and others nurtured. He also spoke about Savarkar’s views on “Who is a Hindu” and his concept of Hindutva. In the second half of the session he showed us a couple of short films that featured mainly the issues people were facing in Manipur – AFSPA(Armed Forces Special Powers Act) that empowers the officials to arrest, shoot anyone on grounds of suspicion and how that act was being misused to the extend of putting peoples lives in peril. One film showed the tragedy that a young girl Manorama faced. She was picked up from home for interrogation purposes and the next dawn people awoke to see the body of Manorama lying in the fields with her clothes tattered and body full of bruises. No doubt, she was brutally raped. A group of women (naked) protested against all these happenings in front of the Assam Rifles office. Another video featured the case of a teenager who again was picked up from his home on grounds of suspicion and was killed.
For a moment we were all shell shocked. What is it that is happening in North East? What is the purpose of a law like AFSPA which is supposed to protect the masses of the land is in reality responsible for so many custodial deaths, rapes etc. For whom are these laws created? The videos just threw a host of questions like these in our minds. The faculty asked us to feel what we saw. Just feel, he said.
Once again he came back to the question” What is it that you have in common amongst you”? We don’t have anything in common. That is the truth. Perhaps we should not look out for something in common; rather we should try and negotiate the differences. May be what all of us have in common is INSECURITY, I felt. A fear of rejection is what probably makes us adhere to all our customs, traditions and it is indeed this insecurity that makes us part of a social milieu.
All our ideas of India were shattered during this course. Where is the unity? People of Kashmir want a separate nation. People in the North east tend to identify more with the people of Burma and hence they want a separate nation. A part of the population in Andhra wants a separate state, Telengana. What do we mean by a nation? What is national interest? All these questions, it seems do not have answers. One thing is for certain. There have always been differences. There wasn’t anything in common. But the point is that we have failed to negotiate the differences. And perhaps that’s where the root cause of all these separatist movements lie. (Again I was rebuked for using the word separatist. I was asked “Who calls them separatist”? The British called us Indians separatists.)
Boy, I tell you, this was one of the most iconoclastic sessions we have had. I am sure that the notions that all students carried about India has been shredded into bits. All that we have now is confused notions. Perhaps this is what the proponents of the Foundation courses wanted – Unlearn the past and become individuals of confused wisdom.
As part of restructuring, TISS has introduced the Foundation courses for its first year students. Students, irrespective of their area of specialization come under one roof to learn the foundation courses which focus mainly on topics like society, social structure, culture, identity, conflicts, idea of nation state etc. I would say that this has perhaps been one of the excellent steps that were taken as part of restructuring. The specialty of TISS is that we get a chance to study with the social work people in the same institute which always gave us a chance to listen to views that were completely divergent from ours which is mostly business oriented. But the foundation courses have actually given us a formal platform where we can hear their views and may be get into some kind of interactive discussions.
Recently, I attended a session on what my close buddy, Rahul jocularly says”Indiaye engane rekshikkam” (How can we save India). To begin with, the debonair lecturer asked us the idea of India we had in our minds. There were a host of replies like unity in diversity, developing nation, poverty among others. Then he asked us what that we find in common among all of us is. Once again there were a flurry of replies like values, traditions etc.
The faculty went on to teach us the idea of India that our great leaders, of the likes of Nehru, Gandhi, Patel, Savarkar and others nurtured. He also spoke about Savarkar’s views on “Who is a Hindu” and his concept of Hindutva. In the second half of the session he showed us a couple of short films that featured mainly the issues people were facing in Manipur – AFSPA(Armed Forces Special Powers Act) that empowers the officials to arrest, shoot anyone on grounds of suspicion and how that act was being misused to the extend of putting peoples lives in peril. One film showed the tragedy that a young girl Manorama faced. She was picked up from home for interrogation purposes and the next dawn people awoke to see the body of Manorama lying in the fields with her clothes tattered and body full of bruises. No doubt, she was brutally raped. A group of women (naked) protested against all these happenings in front of the Assam Rifles office. Another video featured the case of a teenager who again was picked up from his home on grounds of suspicion and was killed.
For a moment we were all shell shocked. What is it that is happening in North East? What is the purpose of a law like AFSPA which is supposed to protect the masses of the land is in reality responsible for so many custodial deaths, rapes etc. For whom are these laws created? The videos just threw a host of questions like these in our minds. The faculty asked us to feel what we saw. Just feel, he said.
Once again he came back to the question” What is it that you have in common amongst you”? We don’t have anything in common. That is the truth. Perhaps we should not look out for something in common; rather we should try and negotiate the differences. May be what all of us have in common is INSECURITY, I felt. A fear of rejection is what probably makes us adhere to all our customs, traditions and it is indeed this insecurity that makes us part of a social milieu.
All our ideas of India were shattered during this course. Where is the unity? People of Kashmir want a separate nation. People in the North east tend to identify more with the people of Burma and hence they want a separate nation. A part of the population in Andhra wants a separate state, Telengana. What do we mean by a nation? What is national interest? All these questions, it seems do not have answers. One thing is for certain. There have always been differences. There wasn’t anything in common. But the point is that we have failed to negotiate the differences. And perhaps that’s where the root cause of all these separatist movements lie. (Again I was rebuked for using the word separatist. I was asked “Who calls them separatist”? The British called us Indians separatists.)
Boy, I tell you, this was one of the most iconoclastic sessions we have had. I am sure that the notions that all students carried about India has been shredded into bits. All that we have now is confused notions. Perhaps this is what the proponents of the Foundation courses wanted – Unlearn the past and become individuals of confused wisdom.
Friday, April 21, 2006
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
A Note of Thanksgiving
It’s time to give a vote of thanks. Thanks to all those people who have made me what I am today. For today I am extremely happy and see a fresh new life ahead. Till yesterday I felt as though I was approaching the edge of a cliff just knowing that there is a deep trench ahead, its depth unfathomable and if I fall, I knew that I was going to get hurt badly. But no longer. Ok…am breaking the suspense. Have got through TISS - an institute where I have been longing to go for the past couple of years and do something which I wish to do from the bottom of my heart – Labor Relations. Finally that has happened and I am all set to go.
But hey…You just can’t go like that. True. There are many stakeholders in this success of mine and I need to give them a part of the pie. So this space is for them. Let’s do it the memento style.
First of all I would like to thank my Manager Uday who gave me the liberty to come back from US after losing an account just because I didn’t want to stay there. It was for certain that if I stayed there I wouldn’t have been able to appear for TISS. Thanks Uday.
Thanks to the entire PeopleSoft team at Patni which during my preparation helped me keep faith in me. Thank you Sanjay for taking the pains to understand why I was keen on doing HR. Your relentless pushing and prodding has helped me a lot in coming up with better, rational and convincing answers. I know that you still are not convinced and do not still consider my domain as something that offers potential challenges. I hope to demystify all your concerns and give you a satisfying reply in the next 2 years. Thank you all.
Thank you Preethi, for pitching in at the right time and helping me take the decision of rejecting the much coveted onsite opportunity, stay back and give TISS when the whole lot of people around me asked me to go. Thanks dear. (Very big thanks for letting me know that there is something called TISS…you deserve a large piece of the pie for that).
Thank you appa and amma for giving me the freedom to do something of my choice. I respect the freedom and will continue to cherish that freedom in the next 2 years. Thanks Renjini (my sister) for keeping alive the hopes in appa and amma’s mind.
Thank you Datta, for inspiring me to do IR. You have been there mentoring me throughout the last 3 years. Thank you for listening patiently to all my crap, immature statements about HR and for guiding me.
And now…..time has come to thank the main stakeholder. I don’t know what name I shall give him. Friend, philosopher, guide, critic, mentor….he has been that and much more than that.; a person who has been with me for the past 3 years and who has been solely responsible for shaping me the way I am today. Our relationship took off on a high met with a low and then has come back on a high completing one full circle. I don’t know how to thank you. I sincerely wish that you have a great life ahead. Love you and your bulging eyes with which you see a completely different life around. The most creative, innovative, pragmatic, eclectic and iconoclastic person whom I have ever met in my life – Rahul S. Thank you my friend for those golden words “Why don’t you go for HR and try giving TISS” even though it was over 2 rounds of booze.
Thanks to SAI Vihar bar for always being there as our last bastion of companionship when everything else in the world ditched us. Thanks to those rounds of Kingfisher which shook us up and made us think about life in a new direction.
It’s time to give a vote of thanks. Thanks to all those people who have made me what I am today. For today I am extremely happy and see a fresh new life ahead. Till yesterday I felt as though I was approaching the edge of a cliff just knowing that there is a deep trench ahead, its depth unfathomable and if I fall, I knew that I was going to get hurt badly. But no longer. Ok…am breaking the suspense. Have got through TISS - an institute where I have been longing to go for the past couple of years and do something which I wish to do from the bottom of my heart – Labor Relations. Finally that has happened and I am all set to go.
But hey…You just can’t go like that. True. There are many stakeholders in this success of mine and I need to give them a part of the pie. So this space is for them. Let’s do it the memento style.
First of all I would like to thank my Manager Uday who gave me the liberty to come back from US after losing an account just because I didn’t want to stay there. It was for certain that if I stayed there I wouldn’t have been able to appear for TISS. Thanks Uday.
Thanks to the entire PeopleSoft team at Patni which during my preparation helped me keep faith in me. Thank you Sanjay for taking the pains to understand why I was keen on doing HR. Your relentless pushing and prodding has helped me a lot in coming up with better, rational and convincing answers. I know that you still are not convinced and do not still consider my domain as something that offers potential challenges. I hope to demystify all your concerns and give you a satisfying reply in the next 2 years. Thank you all.
Thank you Preethi, for pitching in at the right time and helping me take the decision of rejecting the much coveted onsite opportunity, stay back and give TISS when the whole lot of people around me asked me to go. Thanks dear. (Very big thanks for letting me know that there is something called TISS…you deserve a large piece of the pie for that).
Thank you appa and amma for giving me the freedom to do something of my choice. I respect the freedom and will continue to cherish that freedom in the next 2 years. Thanks Renjini (my sister) for keeping alive the hopes in appa and amma’s mind.
Thank you Datta, for inspiring me to do IR. You have been there mentoring me throughout the last 3 years. Thank you for listening patiently to all my crap, immature statements about HR and for guiding me.
And now…..time has come to thank the main stakeholder. I don’t know what name I shall give him. Friend, philosopher, guide, critic, mentor….he has been that and much more than that.; a person who has been with me for the past 3 years and who has been solely responsible for shaping me the way I am today. Our relationship took off on a high met with a low and then has come back on a high completing one full circle. I don’t know how to thank you. I sincerely wish that you have a great life ahead. Love you and your bulging eyes with which you see a completely different life around. The most creative, innovative, pragmatic, eclectic and iconoclastic person whom I have ever met in my life – Rahul S. Thank you my friend for those golden words “Why don’t you go for HR and try giving TISS” even though it was over 2 rounds of booze.
Thanks to SAI Vihar bar for always being there as our last bastion of companionship when everything else in the world ditched us. Thanks to those rounds of Kingfisher which shook us up and made us think about life in a new direction.
Thanks Vijay Mallya…Has anyone got his number…:)
Monday, April 17, 2006
Bombay meri Jaan
What is it about Bombay that I cherish? I tried to answer this as I sat on the raised platform along the Queen’s necklace bang opposite the Hilton hotel facing the sea. In front of me lay a city, which had already earned many a description like “The city that never sleeps”, “The city of dreams”, “The land of Bollywood”, “India’s financial capital”, “India’s Paris” (Bombay looks like Paris when approached by sea), “India’s London”(Thanks to the Britons and their excellent town planning) etc.
All these descriptions might be true; rather they are. Nowhere in India you would find so many people rushing to catch the local train, which is the river of life, even at 12 o clock. Nowhere in India would you find so many people stepping in to make it big in their life; thanks to Bollywood and all those great men who made Bombay famous the way it is. Bombay houses the premier Stock exchange of India, some of the richest men in India, some of the poorest of people in the whole world; house of hijadas, hookers, peddlers and hawkers who throng the footpaths, the city of dons and encounter specialists, home of king khans and bollywood starlets, land of red street and dancing damsels, city of skyscrapers and shanties (though the latter is what Bombay is famous for –largest slum in Asia)… you name anything and I am sure that you would find it in Bombay. Such is the charisma and the innate ability of this beautiful island city to accommodate all those different identities that it has captured my imagination. I am sure that given the space and time I would just go on and on writing about Mumbai; no wonder Suketu Mehta took almost 600 pages in describing Bombay.
Underlying all these ornate descriptions there is something that makes Bombay so special, which can’t be expressed in words. It’s the spirit of Bombay, the soul of Bombay - its people. Many come here with dreams in their eyes, but we hear only about Bacchan or Dirubhai Ambani for that instance. We hear about people coming in but not about anyone who wants to leave Mumbai. There is something that holds us on here. I would say it’s the spirit of the people that is the true soul of Bombay. People live in houses like matchboxes, breathe polluted air, drink unclean water and travel miles a day to do something and eke out a living. Most of the people have a hand to mouth existence; still they stay here and continue to do something to make a living without the slightest of concerns for their dignity. It is the inequality that this city has by default that has affected me the most. I see people around striving to make a living without cribbing about how difficult it is to live in this city of crowded trains, crowded roads and crowded footpaths. It is this spirit of the common man that has taken me aback by surprise and sometimes I feel that in the stoicity of their eyes lies my lost resilience. They have tales of lost opportunities; luxuries that they are not destined to and having a comfortable and cozy life, which they can only dream, in this city of dreams. It is this sheer in-equation that forces me to think of the luxuries and privileges that I enjoyed; which rather shakes me to think “Shouldn’t I be more responsible, more committed to the society, rather take more ownership and create a difference?”
I had recently been to TISS (Tata Institute of Social Sciences) for an interview for Human Resources Management course. I had been asked to report there by 9 am for my GD/PI. The GD got over by 11 am and I went and sat outside the room where I was supposed to get interviewed. Contrary to last time, I thought that the admission process this time would be more organized but I realized only to my dismay that there was no change in the whole process. Students were called in random into the rooms where panelists were ready to grill them for the next couple of minutes and give their verdict on how good or bad they were judging them during the 10 min stint that candidates share with them. Initially I saw that there were only 10 candidates that my number would come soon. But later I noticed that there were always 10 candidates and that number never seemed to decrease. I was perplexed, as I could not make out from where were those students coming from. I sat there with a bemused smile, though I was already on the verge of losing my patience. But hey..You need to be more mature, I told myself and you just can’t be like those kids straight out of college who were sitting beside me and cribbing.
The time was 5 o clock and there were still 10 of us left to be interviewed. I was getting tired of this entire process of waiting and the whole scene reminisced me of some movies in which people used to line up outside offices for getting into those limited coveted posts. Disillusionment had started to creep into my mind and I was increasingly getting the feeling that I wont perform well in the interview. Just then I noticed a lady in a wheelchair advancing towards me. Her eyes were gleaming and she was telling her friend that she could manage by herself as she turned the wheels of her wheelchair with more zeal and enthusiasm. The spirit of this young lady whose smile and energy made me think that it was I who was handicapped and not she amazed me. I realized that this was the specialty of TISS. Handicapped people are also given opportunity in this institute and it has truly lived up to the expectations of a Social Sciences institute catering to the needs to a wide variety of people and in meting out social justice. There were a flurry of thoughts in mind; again of lost opportunities and that comparative advantage which I enjoyed but which never ever had captured my imagination to this extend. I just hoped that I would be the last person to be interviewed and it happened so.
I entered the room and I greeted the panelists warmly and told them that I was the last man standing. There were relieved. After hearing to a host of “Why HR “answers they were tired.
I gave my own reasons for doing HR and I hope they were convinced. My interview got over in 15 min and I was about to leave. I reached the door and I turned back. I said in a mellowed voice, “ Sir I have a suggestion”. They asked me to be seated. I told them about how candidates who had come at 9 o clock had to wait almost till 6 o clock to get interviewed and how it had disillusioned and disgusted them. In addition I told them that if this entire procedure could be made more organized by giving time slots to people, they would feel better and more motivated. At least the first impression they shape about the institute in their minds would be a lot better, I told them. One of the panelists riposted “ That’s a good piece of HR advice”.
I was extremely happy that I could tell them how things could be made more organized in an institute in which I dream to study one day. In my mind I thanked the lady in the wheelchair for having given me the courage to speak out something that was in my mind. I returned home happy and satisfied.
What is it about Bombay that I cherish? I tried to answer this as I sat on the raised platform along the Queen’s necklace bang opposite the Hilton hotel facing the sea. In front of me lay a city, which had already earned many a description like “The city that never sleeps”, “The city of dreams”, “The land of Bollywood”, “India’s financial capital”, “India’s Paris” (Bombay looks like Paris when approached by sea), “India’s London”(Thanks to the Britons and their excellent town planning) etc.
All these descriptions might be true; rather they are. Nowhere in India you would find so many people rushing to catch the local train, which is the river of life, even at 12 o clock. Nowhere in India would you find so many people stepping in to make it big in their life; thanks to Bollywood and all those great men who made Bombay famous the way it is. Bombay houses the premier Stock exchange of India, some of the richest men in India, some of the poorest of people in the whole world; house of hijadas, hookers, peddlers and hawkers who throng the footpaths, the city of dons and encounter specialists, home of king khans and bollywood starlets, land of red street and dancing damsels, city of skyscrapers and shanties (though the latter is what Bombay is famous for –largest slum in Asia)… you name anything and I am sure that you would find it in Bombay. Such is the charisma and the innate ability of this beautiful island city to accommodate all those different identities that it has captured my imagination. I am sure that given the space and time I would just go on and on writing about Mumbai; no wonder Suketu Mehta took almost 600 pages in describing Bombay.
Underlying all these ornate descriptions there is something that makes Bombay so special, which can’t be expressed in words. It’s the spirit of Bombay, the soul of Bombay - its people. Many come here with dreams in their eyes, but we hear only about Bacchan or Dirubhai Ambani for that instance. We hear about people coming in but not about anyone who wants to leave Mumbai. There is something that holds us on here. I would say it’s the spirit of the people that is the true soul of Bombay. People live in houses like matchboxes, breathe polluted air, drink unclean water and travel miles a day to do something and eke out a living. Most of the people have a hand to mouth existence; still they stay here and continue to do something to make a living without the slightest of concerns for their dignity. It is the inequality that this city has by default that has affected me the most. I see people around striving to make a living without cribbing about how difficult it is to live in this city of crowded trains, crowded roads and crowded footpaths. It is this spirit of the common man that has taken me aback by surprise and sometimes I feel that in the stoicity of their eyes lies my lost resilience. They have tales of lost opportunities; luxuries that they are not destined to and having a comfortable and cozy life, which they can only dream, in this city of dreams. It is this sheer in-equation that forces me to think of the luxuries and privileges that I enjoyed; which rather shakes me to think “Shouldn’t I be more responsible, more committed to the society, rather take more ownership and create a difference?”
I had recently been to TISS (Tata Institute of Social Sciences) for an interview for Human Resources Management course. I had been asked to report there by 9 am for my GD/PI. The GD got over by 11 am and I went and sat outside the room where I was supposed to get interviewed. Contrary to last time, I thought that the admission process this time would be more organized but I realized only to my dismay that there was no change in the whole process. Students were called in random into the rooms where panelists were ready to grill them for the next couple of minutes and give their verdict on how good or bad they were judging them during the 10 min stint that candidates share with them. Initially I saw that there were only 10 candidates that my number would come soon. But later I noticed that there were always 10 candidates and that number never seemed to decrease. I was perplexed, as I could not make out from where were those students coming from. I sat there with a bemused smile, though I was already on the verge of losing my patience. But hey..You need to be more mature, I told myself and you just can’t be like those kids straight out of college who were sitting beside me and cribbing.
The time was 5 o clock and there were still 10 of us left to be interviewed. I was getting tired of this entire process of waiting and the whole scene reminisced me of some movies in which people used to line up outside offices for getting into those limited coveted posts. Disillusionment had started to creep into my mind and I was increasingly getting the feeling that I wont perform well in the interview. Just then I noticed a lady in a wheelchair advancing towards me. Her eyes were gleaming and she was telling her friend that she could manage by herself as she turned the wheels of her wheelchair with more zeal and enthusiasm. The spirit of this young lady whose smile and energy made me think that it was I who was handicapped and not she amazed me. I realized that this was the specialty of TISS. Handicapped people are also given opportunity in this institute and it has truly lived up to the expectations of a Social Sciences institute catering to the needs to a wide variety of people and in meting out social justice. There were a flurry of thoughts in mind; again of lost opportunities and that comparative advantage which I enjoyed but which never ever had captured my imagination to this extend. I just hoped that I would be the last person to be interviewed and it happened so.
I entered the room and I greeted the panelists warmly and told them that I was the last man standing. There were relieved. After hearing to a host of “Why HR “answers they were tired.
I gave my own reasons for doing HR and I hope they were convinced. My interview got over in 15 min and I was about to leave. I reached the door and I turned back. I said in a mellowed voice, “ Sir I have a suggestion”. They asked me to be seated. I told them about how candidates who had come at 9 o clock had to wait almost till 6 o clock to get interviewed and how it had disillusioned and disgusted them. In addition I told them that if this entire procedure could be made more organized by giving time slots to people, they would feel better and more motivated. At least the first impression they shape about the institute in their minds would be a lot better, I told them. One of the panelists riposted “ That’s a good piece of HR advice”.
I was extremely happy that I could tell them how things could be made more organized in an institute in which I dream to study one day. In my mind I thanked the lady in the wheelchair for having given me the courage to speak out something that was in my mind. I returned home happy and satisfied.
Friday, March 17, 2006
Truly Flat
The world is no longer round but is flat says New York Times journalist, Thomas L Friedman in his book “The World is Flat”. Friedman propounds that the playing field has been leveled due to technology. In his book, he explains the various forces that flattened the world which all started with the Fall of the Berlin wall and how there has been a paradigm shift in the thought process of people from “Me and my computer” in the late 80’s, to “Me and others” in the 90’s envisaged by the internet and instant messaging to the present scenario of seamless integration between “My application and their application”.
As I was reading the book, I thought about some of my own experiences, which reaffirmed my faith in the notion that the World is flat. I had been to Chicago in December 2005 for a project. It was wintertime and it was really cold. Chicago is often termed as a windy city and the cold was biting and unbearable for a person like me who never had to withstand such cold in the past. I was all alone in this windy city and knew no one out there. I was least inclined to move out also because of the extreme cold. Since I landed there on a weekend, for 2 days I was there in my hotel room just like Sanjay Dutt in Zinda absolutely alone and the only person whom I talked to in person was the black lady who used to get me shredded bits of plastic (read cornflakes) and milk for my breakfast. I called up home and literally broke down saying that I was all alone, that there was no one to talk to and that I could not go out because of the cold. After the initial outburst, I just started settling down and lent my ear to dad’s stoic philosophy and its underling principle that Survival is an art.
As soon as I put down the receiver, I got a ring from the front desk saying that a laptop has been shipped to me and that I should go down to collect it. I was a bit delighted but didn’t quite know the reason. I brought the laptop to my room and got it charged. What next? I was at a loss. I wasn’t the sort of tech savvy person and never in my life had I a yahoo account and never had I used the instant messaging system. I remembered Shyam Mohan, a friend of mine who used to eat, drink and sleep on yahoo and who used to relentlessly chat with his ladylove who was located just 10 houses down the lane of his house so much so that if he screamed she could hear it. I got on setting up a yahoo account for myself, the first of its kind other than my company id and went on to set up the instant messaging system. I added some of my friends’ ids and waited for them with my eyes glued to the laptop screen. For a while no one seemed to come online.
I went back to the fantasy world created by Jhumpa Lahiri when suddenly I heard a knocking sound. It wasn’t the black lady but it was my friend Preethi, about whom I was thinking a while ago, pinging me on instant messaging. I was delighted. It was as though somebody had brought her and made to stand in front of me. I was getting ecstatic as a few minutes of chat made me exuberant and the life which I was cribbing as insipid was suddenly turning out to be exhilarating one. I was just beginning to wonder at the amazing ability of the Internet to change things. It was giving something, which a Jhumpa Lahiri or an Arundathi Roy book couldn’t give. She was sitting there in Mumbai at the other side of the world and was chatting with me as though she was with me in the same room. Amazing. She went on to show some of the photos she had taken in their recently concluded fresher party at her college. Soon another friend of mine, Reghu, came online. He shared with me the photos of Ganga Snan and the Ram and Lakshman joola at Haridwar. I couldn’t just control the excitement. Here I was in Chicago and I am seeing the photos of Haridwar, a beautiful serene religious place in Uttaranchal, shown to me by a friend sitting at Delhi. The way digitized information such as files, photos, data, music etc could be sent over the Internet was suddenly appearing to me amazing though for the past two years I had been sending out emails and reports to my onsite coordinator who again was sitting miles away from me but which had never got my attention to this extend that I started wowing at the power of the Internet.
Technology has gone far more than instant messaging and emails. Blogging, of which I became aware, quite recently is absolutely wonderful. It gives us a space of our own and makes us a part of the Internet fraternity. It allows us to write and publish information on the net and makes it available not only to the ones we know but also to the unknown. It has given us a platform to express our ideas, thoughts and share them with many like us. Amazing, Isn’t it?
What more, it has even provided to many amongst us a vent to our creative energies. Anyone aspiring to be a reporter or a journalist need not get into any News company but just needs to have an arsenal that includes a tape recorder, a mobile that can take snaps and access to internet. Here you have your own channel, your own means to publish news and make it available to a large section of society. My God, am going crazy.
There hasn’t been anything that has flattened the world so much as the Internet. Truly, the world is flat. I am sure Christopher Columbus might be spinning in his grave after hearing so many of us yelling, “ The world is Flat”.
The world is no longer round but is flat says New York Times journalist, Thomas L Friedman in his book “The World is Flat”. Friedman propounds that the playing field has been leveled due to technology. In his book, he explains the various forces that flattened the world which all started with the Fall of the Berlin wall and how there has been a paradigm shift in the thought process of people from “Me and my computer” in the late 80’s, to “Me and others” in the 90’s envisaged by the internet and instant messaging to the present scenario of seamless integration between “My application and their application”.
As I was reading the book, I thought about some of my own experiences, which reaffirmed my faith in the notion that the World is flat. I had been to Chicago in December 2005 for a project. It was wintertime and it was really cold. Chicago is often termed as a windy city and the cold was biting and unbearable for a person like me who never had to withstand such cold in the past. I was all alone in this windy city and knew no one out there. I was least inclined to move out also because of the extreme cold. Since I landed there on a weekend, for 2 days I was there in my hotel room just like Sanjay Dutt in Zinda absolutely alone and the only person whom I talked to in person was the black lady who used to get me shredded bits of plastic (read cornflakes) and milk for my breakfast. I called up home and literally broke down saying that I was all alone, that there was no one to talk to and that I could not go out because of the cold. After the initial outburst, I just started settling down and lent my ear to dad’s stoic philosophy and its underling principle that Survival is an art.
As soon as I put down the receiver, I got a ring from the front desk saying that a laptop has been shipped to me and that I should go down to collect it. I was a bit delighted but didn’t quite know the reason. I brought the laptop to my room and got it charged. What next? I was at a loss. I wasn’t the sort of tech savvy person and never in my life had I a yahoo account and never had I used the instant messaging system. I remembered Shyam Mohan, a friend of mine who used to eat, drink and sleep on yahoo and who used to relentlessly chat with his ladylove who was located just 10 houses down the lane of his house so much so that if he screamed she could hear it. I got on setting up a yahoo account for myself, the first of its kind other than my company id and went on to set up the instant messaging system. I added some of my friends’ ids and waited for them with my eyes glued to the laptop screen. For a while no one seemed to come online.
I went back to the fantasy world created by Jhumpa Lahiri when suddenly I heard a knocking sound. It wasn’t the black lady but it was my friend Preethi, about whom I was thinking a while ago, pinging me on instant messaging. I was delighted. It was as though somebody had brought her and made to stand in front of me. I was getting ecstatic as a few minutes of chat made me exuberant and the life which I was cribbing as insipid was suddenly turning out to be exhilarating one. I was just beginning to wonder at the amazing ability of the Internet to change things. It was giving something, which a Jhumpa Lahiri or an Arundathi Roy book couldn’t give. She was sitting there in Mumbai at the other side of the world and was chatting with me as though she was with me in the same room. Amazing. She went on to show some of the photos she had taken in their recently concluded fresher party at her college. Soon another friend of mine, Reghu, came online. He shared with me the photos of Ganga Snan and the Ram and Lakshman joola at Haridwar. I couldn’t just control the excitement. Here I was in Chicago and I am seeing the photos of Haridwar, a beautiful serene religious place in Uttaranchal, shown to me by a friend sitting at Delhi. The way digitized information such as files, photos, data, music etc could be sent over the Internet was suddenly appearing to me amazing though for the past two years I had been sending out emails and reports to my onsite coordinator who again was sitting miles away from me but which had never got my attention to this extend that I started wowing at the power of the Internet.
Technology has gone far more than instant messaging and emails. Blogging, of which I became aware, quite recently is absolutely wonderful. It gives us a space of our own and makes us a part of the Internet fraternity. It allows us to write and publish information on the net and makes it available not only to the ones we know but also to the unknown. It has given us a platform to express our ideas, thoughts and share them with many like us. Amazing, Isn’t it?
What more, it has even provided to many amongst us a vent to our creative energies. Anyone aspiring to be a reporter or a journalist need not get into any News company but just needs to have an arsenal that includes a tape recorder, a mobile that can take snaps and access to internet. Here you have your own channel, your own means to publish news and make it available to a large section of society. My God, am going crazy.
There hasn’t been anything that has flattened the world so much as the Internet. Truly, the world is flat. I am sure Christopher Columbus might be spinning in his grave after hearing so many of us yelling, “ The world is Flat”.
Saturday, February 11, 2006
Back to Loyola School
I was very happy to see my school again. Happier, because I will be studying there again.
We are into the 11th std.Thikurishi sir is waiting for us in the classroom.
Students enter the class with folded umbrellas from which water is dripping.
Its the monsoon time in Kerala.
As each guy enters the class, Binu Ninan who is sitting in the front row greets them
in his own way.
I am seated there in 3rd row with a seat next to me lying vacant.
I am expecting Shyam Mohan who had shared the 2-seater with me when we had been here b4
7 years. Its a long time...7 long years...
Before Shyam comes Sanjay enters and sits next to me; but I don’t object.
Then Shyam comes in. He isn’t excited. He gazes all around; might be searching for me.
But on seeing that the seat next to me isn’t vacant he sits elsewhere and tries to make himself comfortable, but doesn’t quite succeed. There is some thought in him that's lamenting him.
Next comes Bebin Abraham. I just wonder why he is here.
He was in London getting trained for flying the Hawk. How come he's here?
I wanted to talk to him. I am excited as I had talked to him over phone in London but hadn’t met him.
Jeevan J Arackal is coming and Abhilash T K is getting ready to bash him up.
Jeevan has worked in some NGO's; it’s going to be nice to be with him for the next 2 years. That was what flashed across my mind as I saw him.
The classroom is almost filled and the students are all talking amongst themselves what they had done in the past 7 years. Oh god they might have some good big stories
as many of them had already completed their management, some others had spent some time abroad. It’s going to take the next 2 years to listen to all those stories.
I am expecting Kushti who was with me in Mumbai. We had a good time in Mumbai.
He's not there. Well he might be busy in his home; in fact in his bathroom with a signboard outside saying "Man at work"...
Suddenly a girl enters the classroom.
She's fair and beautiful. But the first thing about her, which caught my eye, was her nose ring. I realized that Loyola was now a co-ed school.
Everybody was looking at her.
Suddenly Joseph Mathew who seemed to know her b4 suddenly turned to me and said
"She's a Brahmin; she's yours...."
T k who is sitting behind me cries..."No I want her"..
Shyam Mohan who has had his days of romance in college and office is still hungry
as a lover. He shouts" Come on man TK u r married...How can u say that"...
The bell rings. It isnt the school bell; It is alarm bell.
I wake up to realize that I am late for office.
Science says that a dream lasts for 1/nth of sec...
but i guess it was much more than that..
I was very happy to see my school again. Happier, because I will be studying there again.
We are into the 11th std.Thikurishi sir is waiting for us in the classroom.
Students enter the class with folded umbrellas from which water is dripping.
Its the monsoon time in Kerala.
As each guy enters the class, Binu Ninan who is sitting in the front row greets them
in his own way.
I am seated there in 3rd row with a seat next to me lying vacant.
I am expecting Shyam Mohan who had shared the 2-seater with me when we had been here b4
7 years. Its a long time...7 long years...
Before Shyam comes Sanjay enters and sits next to me; but I don’t object.
Then Shyam comes in. He isn’t excited. He gazes all around; might be searching for me.
But on seeing that the seat next to me isn’t vacant he sits elsewhere and tries to make himself comfortable, but doesn’t quite succeed. There is some thought in him that's lamenting him.
Next comes Bebin Abraham. I just wonder why he is here.
He was in London getting trained for flying the Hawk. How come he's here?
I wanted to talk to him. I am excited as I had talked to him over phone in London but hadn’t met him.
Jeevan J Arackal is coming and Abhilash T K is getting ready to bash him up.
Jeevan has worked in some NGO's; it’s going to be nice to be with him for the next 2 years. That was what flashed across my mind as I saw him.
The classroom is almost filled and the students are all talking amongst themselves what they had done in the past 7 years. Oh god they might have some good big stories
as many of them had already completed their management, some others had spent some time abroad. It’s going to take the next 2 years to listen to all those stories.
I am expecting Kushti who was with me in Mumbai. We had a good time in Mumbai.
He's not there. Well he might be busy in his home; in fact in his bathroom with a signboard outside saying "Man at work"...
Suddenly a girl enters the classroom.
She's fair and beautiful. But the first thing about her, which caught my eye, was her nose ring. I realized that Loyola was now a co-ed school.
Everybody was looking at her.
Suddenly Joseph Mathew who seemed to know her b4 suddenly turned to me and said
"She's a Brahmin; she's yours...."
T k who is sitting behind me cries..."No I want her"..
Shyam Mohan who has had his days of romance in college and office is still hungry
as a lover. He shouts" Come on man TK u r married...How can u say that"...
The bell rings. It isnt the school bell; It is alarm bell.
I wake up to realize that I am late for office.
Science says that a dream lasts for 1/nth of sec...
but i guess it was much more than that..
Friday, February 10, 2006
Question of Choice
The sun was setting in the distance giving the entire horizon a pinkish look; a sight, which I am sure, no one will be able to stop themselves from looking at. For the first time, I looked at the distant horizon. It was vague, bleak and dark; just like our future, I imagined. For the past 2 years we have traveling the same route. I had always enjoyed watching the tiny ripples in the shallow waters of the creek and the white-feathered birds, which fly across them in a group. I had never dared to look beyond these, rather this was the first time I started thinking of our lives ahead. And it appeared to me, vague.
For the past couple of days, ever since the results of CAT came and calls from different colleges started coming, a feeling of disillusionment had begun to set in the once fun filled Helen Villa. The level of disillusionment was ostensibly high in one of my friends, who made his way to the top of charts of the CAT results, yet managed to get only one call. This disillusionment was quite palpable as it reflected in every action and word of his. May be I was seeing someone turning rebellious for the first time, who was completely frustrated with the whole system and tired of the whole rhetoric of why we need an MBA.
Are we getting into a groove from which extrication is not possible? I have reasons to think for and against it. With each year, inarguably we are getting into a position as we climb up the corporate ladder, where we can’t dodge our responsibilities like we had done a year back. The time we can get to spare to prepare for an exam of the magnitude of CAT also gets less.
Once the CAT season ends, we are back in the office gazing at the 14” monitor without even the slightest of inclination to work. And then comes the lucrative onsite opportunity which is nothing but corrupt. It corrupts the aspiring minds of individuals giving them dollars, cars in addition to apartments on the 34th floor from where you get an absolutely fantastic view of the downtown below, and from where you are really reluctant to touch the books which once you had kept close to your heart while sleeping. Rather you stop thinking of your ideals, your dreams that get buried in these worldly pleasures which you can’t even dream of abandoning.
But eventually whom are we supposed to blame? Is it the system, which doesn’t give you enough opportunities to do what you want, rather help identify what you want? Or is this the way it works? You land up somewhere doing something which you don’t know and which you didn’t know when you were doing that either and then you realize that you are unfit for this and start thinking about greener pastures without knowing the plausible fate of what could happen once you land there. No, I wouldn’t blame the confused souls but they are many amongst us who know what they really want but don’t do anything to achieve it.
Because, to achieve it requires hard work and it involves taking certain risks which I am sure they are not going to take especially if they are leading a trouble free life in which they do nothing but some work, sitting in those revolving chairs of the corporate, which even they don’t respect, have lunch from a nearby kiosk with some teammates who add spice to the already spicy food with their lies and comments on how other people in the company walk, sit and… and end their day having vada stuffed inside the bun of the MacWorld along with a tinge of love from their beloved(those who have them..:)).
I don’t hope to awaken those souls who have gone into a slumber but the fact is that nothing is going to happen unless and until you decide that something should happen.
The sun was setting in the distance giving the entire horizon a pinkish look; a sight, which I am sure, no one will be able to stop themselves from looking at. For the first time, I looked at the distant horizon. It was vague, bleak and dark; just like our future, I imagined. For the past 2 years we have traveling the same route. I had always enjoyed watching the tiny ripples in the shallow waters of the creek and the white-feathered birds, which fly across them in a group. I had never dared to look beyond these, rather this was the first time I started thinking of our lives ahead. And it appeared to me, vague.
For the past couple of days, ever since the results of CAT came and calls from different colleges started coming, a feeling of disillusionment had begun to set in the once fun filled Helen Villa. The level of disillusionment was ostensibly high in one of my friends, who made his way to the top of charts of the CAT results, yet managed to get only one call. This disillusionment was quite palpable as it reflected in every action and word of his. May be I was seeing someone turning rebellious for the first time, who was completely frustrated with the whole system and tired of the whole rhetoric of why we need an MBA.
Are we getting into a groove from which extrication is not possible? I have reasons to think for and against it. With each year, inarguably we are getting into a position as we climb up the corporate ladder, where we can’t dodge our responsibilities like we had done a year back. The time we can get to spare to prepare for an exam of the magnitude of CAT also gets less.
Once the CAT season ends, we are back in the office gazing at the 14” monitor without even the slightest of inclination to work. And then comes the lucrative onsite opportunity which is nothing but corrupt. It corrupts the aspiring minds of individuals giving them dollars, cars in addition to apartments on the 34th floor from where you get an absolutely fantastic view of the downtown below, and from where you are really reluctant to touch the books which once you had kept close to your heart while sleeping. Rather you stop thinking of your ideals, your dreams that get buried in these worldly pleasures which you can’t even dream of abandoning.
But eventually whom are we supposed to blame? Is it the system, which doesn’t give you enough opportunities to do what you want, rather help identify what you want? Or is this the way it works? You land up somewhere doing something which you don’t know and which you didn’t know when you were doing that either and then you realize that you are unfit for this and start thinking about greener pastures without knowing the plausible fate of what could happen once you land there. No, I wouldn’t blame the confused souls but they are many amongst us who know what they really want but don’t do anything to achieve it.
Because, to achieve it requires hard work and it involves taking certain risks which I am sure they are not going to take especially if they are leading a trouble free life in which they do nothing but some work, sitting in those revolving chairs of the corporate, which even they don’t respect, have lunch from a nearby kiosk with some teammates who add spice to the already spicy food with their lies and comments on how other people in the company walk, sit and… and end their day having vada stuffed inside the bun of the MacWorld along with a tinge of love from their beloved(those who have them..:)).
I don’t hope to awaken those souls who have gone into a slumber but the fact is that nothing is going to happen unless and until you decide that something should happen.
Friday, January 27, 2006
A CULTURE OF DIVERSITY
SHASHI THAROOR
The idea of India is not based on language,not on geography, not on ethnicity and not on religion.The idea of India is of one land embracing many.
H OW CAN ONE approach the India of snow peaks and tropical jungles, with seventeen major languages and 22,000 district "dialects" (some spoken by more people than Danish or Norwegian), inhabited by nearly 940 million individuals of every ethnic extraction known to humanity? How does one come to terms with a country whose population is 51% illiterate but which has educated the world's second-largest pool of trained scientists and engineers, whose teeming cities overflow while four out of five Indians scratch a living from the soil?
What is the due to understanding a country rife with despair and disrepair, which nonetheless moved a Mogul emperor to claim, "If on Earth there he paradise or bliss, it is this, it is this, it is this..."? How does one gauge a culture which elevated non-violence to an effective moral principle, but whose freedom was born in blood and whose independence still soaks in it? How does one explain a land where peasant organizations and suspicious officials attempt to close down Kentucky Fried Chicken as a threat to the nation, where a former Prime Minister bitterly criticizes the sale of Pepsi-Cola "in a country where villagers don't have clean drinking water, and which invents more sophisticated software For US computer manufacturers than and other country in the world? How can one portray the present, let alone the future, of an ageless civilization that is the birthplace of four major religions, a dozen different traditions of classical dance, eighty-five political parties and 300 ways of cooking the potato?
The short answer is that it can't be done - at least not to everyone's satisfaction. Any truism about India can be immediately' contradicted by another truism about India. The country's national motto, emblazoned on its governmental crest, is "Satyameva Jayate": Truth Always Triumphs. The question remains, however: whose truth? It is a question to which there are at least 940 million answers.
B UT THAT SORT of answer is no answer at all. Another answer may lie in a single insight: the singular thing about India is that you can only speak of it in the plural. There are many Indias. Everything exists in countless variants. There is no single standard, no fixed stereotype, no one way". This pluralism is acknowledged in the way India arranges its own affairs: all groups, faiths, tastes and ideologies flourish and contend.
India is not just a country, it is an adventure, one in which all avenues are open and everything is possible. The British historian E. P. Thompson wrote, "There is not a thought that is being thought in the West or East that is not active in some Indian mind."
That Indian mind has been shaped by remarkably diverse forces:
ancient Hindu tradition, myth and scripture; the impact of Islam and Christianity; and two centuries of British colonial rule. The result is unique. Many observers have been astonished by India's survival as a pluralist society. But India could hardly have survived as anything else. Pluralism is a reality that emerges from the very nature of India.
One of the few generalizations that can safely he made about India is that nothing can be taken for granted here. Not even its name: for the word "India" comes from the river Indus. which flows in Pakistan. That anomaly is easily explained, for what is today Pakistan was part of India until it was partitioned in 1947. Yet each explanation breeds another anomaly. Pakistan was created as a homeland for India's Muslims, but from 1971 till very recently there were more Muslims in India than in Pakistan.
With diversity emerging from its geography and inscribed in its history, India was made for pluralism. It is not surprising, then, that the political life of modern India has been rather like traditional Indian music: the broad basic rules are firmly set, but within them one is free to improvise, unshackled by a written score.
W E ARE ALL minorities in India. A typical Indian stepping off a train, a Hindi-speaking Hindu male from the Gangetic plain state of Uttar Pradesh, might cherish the illusion that he represents the "majority community", to use an expression much favoured by the less industrious of our journalists. But be does not. As a Hindu he belongs to the faith adhered to by some 82% of the population, but a majority of the country does not speak Hindi; a majority does not hail from Uttar Pradesh; and if he were visiting, say, Kerala, he would discover that a majority is not even male. Worse. our archetypal UP
Hindu has only to mingle with the polyglot, polychrome crowds thronging any of India's major railway stations to realize bow much of a minority he really is. Even his Hinduism is no guarantee of majorityhood, because his caste automatically places him in a minority as well: if he is a Brahmin, 90% of his fellow Indians are not; if he is a Yadav, 85% of Indians are not - and so on.
Or take language. The Constitution of India recognizes seventeen today, but, in fact, there are thirty-five Indian languages which are each spoken by more than a million people - and these are Languages, with their own scripts, grammatical structures and cultural assumptions, not just dialects. Each of the native speakers of these languages is in a linguistic minority, for none enjoys majority status in India.
Thanks in part to the popularity of Bombay's Hindi cinema, Hindi is understood, if not always well spoken, by nearly half the population of India, but it is in no sense the language of the majority.
Ethnicity further complicates the
notion of a majority community. Most of the time, our Indian names immediately reveal where we are from and what our mother tongue is; when we introduce ourselves we are advertising our origins. Despite some inter-marriage at the elite levels in the cities, Indians still remain largely endogamous, and a Bengali is easily distinguished from a Punjabi. The difference this reflects is often more apparent than the elements of commonality. Karnataka Brahmins share their Hindu faith with Burr Quorums, but feel little identity with them in respect of appearance, dress, customs, tastes, language or political objectives. At the same time Tamil Hindus would feel that they have far more in common with Tamil Christians or Muslims than with, say, Punjabis with whom they formally share a religion.
Affinities between Indians span one set of identities and cross into another I am simultaneously Keralite (my state of origin), Malayali (my linguistic affiliation), Hindu (my religious faith), Nair (my caste), Calcuttan (by marriage), Stephanian (because of my education at Delhi's St. Stephen's College) and so on, and in my interactions with other Indians, each or several of these identities may play a part. Each, while affiliating me to a group with the same label, sets me apart from others; but even within each group, few would share the other identities I also claim, and so I find myself again in a minority within each minority.
I T IS IN SUCH a context that we must understand that much-abused term, "secularism". Western dictionaries define "secularism" as the absence of religion, but Indian secularism means a profusion of religions, none of which is privileged by the state. Secularism in India does not mean irreligiousness, which even avowedly atheist panics like the Communists or the DMK found unpopular amongst their voters; rather, it means multi-religiousness. In the Calcutta neighbourhood where I lived during my high-school years, the wail of the muezzin calling the Islamic faithful to prayer blended with the chant of the mantras at the Hindu temple and the voices of the Sikh faithful at the gurudwara reciting verses from their sacred book.
Throughout the decades after Independence, the political culture of India reflected these "secular" assumptions and attitudes. Though the Indian population was 82% Hindu and the country had been partitioned as a result of a demand for a separate Muslim homeland, two of India's first five Presidents were Muslims; so were innumerable Governors, Cabinet Ministers, Chief Ministers of states, Ambassadors, Generals, and Supreme Court Justices. During the war with Pakistan in 1971, the Indian Air Force in the northern sector was commanded by a Muslim; the Army Commander was a Parsi, the General Officer commanding the forces that marched into Bangladesh was a Sikh, and the General flown in to negotiate the surrender of the Pakistani forces in East Bengal was Jewish.
Indian nationalism is not based on language. It is not based on geography. It is not based on ethnicity. And it is not based on religion. India is an idea, the idea of an ever-ever land.
This land imposes no narrow conformities on its citizens: you can be many things - and one thing. You can be a good Muslim, a good Keralite and a good Indian all at once. Where Freudians speak of the narcissism of minor differences, in India we celebrate the commonality of major differences. To stand Michael Ignatieff on his head, we are a land of belonging rather than of blood.
So the idea of India is of one land embracing many. It is the idea that a nation may endure differences of caste, creed, colour, culture, cuisine, costume and custom, and still rally around a democratic consensus. That consensus is around the simple principle that in a democracy you don't really need to agree - except on the ground rules of how you will disagree. The reason India has survived all the stresses and strains that have beset it for fifty years, and that led so many to predict its imminent disintegration, is that it maintained consensus on how to manage without consensus.
And so the Indian identity that I believe in celebrates diversity: if America is a melting-pot, then to me India is a "thali", a selection of sumptuous dishes in different bowls. Each tastes different, and does not necessarily mix with the next, but they belong together on the same plate, and they complement each other in making the meal a satisfying repast.
Indians are comfortable with multiple identities and multiple loyalties, all coming together in allegiance to a larger idea of India, an India which safeguards the common space available to each identity, an India that remains safe for diversity.
If the overwhelming majority of a people share the political will for unity, if they wear the dust of a shared history on their foreheads and the mud of an uncertain future on their feet, and if they realize they are better off in Kozhikode or Kanpur dreaming the same dreams as those in Kohlapur or Kohima, a nation exists, celebrating diversity and freedom. That is the India that has emerged in the last fifty years, and it is well worth celebrating. °
Shashi Tharoor is the prizewinning author of The Great Indian Novel. His new book, India: From Midnight to the Millennium is published by Viking Penguin in New Delhi and by Arcade Books in New York at $25.95.
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