Desicritics Category: Culture: Survey

The Obsession with Cleanliness

Vinod Joseph — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 14:04:52 EDT

The other day while travelling by train, a lady sitting next to me started complaining (to the man she was travelling with) how dirty the train was. ‘Why don’t the cleaners do a better job?’ she asked.

To me, the train didn’t seem to be particularly dirty. True there were a few specks of dust on the windows and the seats, but there wasn’t any dirt that was visible to my eye. The bins were not overflowing, rather they had just been emptied, and there was no litter scattered on the floor. Did the lady expect the cleaners to vacuum the windows and the seats during the thirty minutes or so when the train rested at London Waterloo before starting its journey back to Bournemouth? I wondered.

The lady supplied the answer to my thoughts when she told her travel companion, ‘they ought to spray everything with disinfectant at least every alternate day.’

I think the woman’s travel companion was as much fussed about cleanliness as I was, and he gave the woman a tolerant and amused smile. I had visions of travelling in a train where everything was spotlessly clean and smelt of anti-bacterial disinfectant, like a hospital ward. I shook my head to get rid of that image. I much rather have a little bit of dust and dirt around me rather than the smell of disinfectant in my nostrils. Surely not all bacteria are harmful? Some of the microbes that are killed off by spraying disinfectants are bound to be the useful ones.

The woman’s comments had me thinking. Are we, at least in parts of the world which have achieved a relative degree of economic prosperity, moving towards unnecessary cleanliness? The sort of nitpicky and fussy cleanliness that only damages the environment and causes global warming? No, I am not a scientist and don’t have technical knowledge of chemicals, but I do know that spraying disinfectants causes global warming. No, don’t ask me how, but I know.

I have friends (mainly English) who will not drink water from a tap, even though tap water is potable almost everywhere here. In the almost seven years I have lived in England, I have always drunk tap water and have never suffered as a result of it. If it were up to me, I’d ban bottled water wherever potable water is freely available, as Bundanoon, a rural Australian town has recently done.

I know of people who will always carry tissues with them just in case they are in a ‘dirty’ place. I know of one chap who avoids shaking hands with people as much as he can just in case they pass on something dirty.

There are lot more allergies in the developed world than in the third world. Even in the ‘west’, people have allergies that were unheard of till thirty years ago. ‘Nut allergy’ is so very common in the UK and other western countries that practically all food products contain a warning regarding this. Most people hadn’t heard of this allergy till a few decades ago.

There was this interesting study conducted in what was once East Germany, which showed that prior to unification with West Germany, East Germans had lower rates of allergies. Apparently after the merger, East Germany became cleaner and neater and less polluted and the people living there consequently became a lot more finicky, which caused an increase in allergies.

It is a proven fact that exposing children to dogs, cats and other animals at a young age reduces their chances of developing common allergies.

Within the developed world, the Japanese are supposed to be the fussiest of the lot, when it comes to (unnecessary) cleanliness.

However, there are certain aspects of hygiene and cleanliness where the West ought to be emulated by the developing world, even if it adds to gaia’s burden. For example, in all the ‘developed’ countries, people dispose of their garbage in plastic garbage bags, which aren’t biodegradable. The garbage is collected in special vans or trucks that take them to landfills or in some cases to recycling centres. In most developing countries, garbage is left in the open, is picked up by trucks or manual collectors, who carry it away exposed to the elements and dump in at vacant sites. In the developed world, the use of garbage bags and special collection trucks does add to the damage cause to the environment. However, I would say that such use is justified since it reduces the spread of disease. One only has to see the poor state of garbage collection and disposal in the third world to realise how important it is to collect and dispose of garbage in a hygienic manner. Of course, it would be great if bio-degradable garbage bags that are not too expensive could be made available all over the world.

India : 85th on Global Corruption Index

Shantanu Dutta — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 12:29:33 EDT

India’s Central Vigilance Commission has taken umbrage at a recent report of the Transparency International the global corruption tracking watch dog. Transparency International has downgraded India’s ranking from 72 to 85 in the list of world’s corruption-plagued countries. That has upset the chief babu of India’s own corruption watchdog, the Central Vigilance Commission, Pratyush Sinha, who has taken up the matter of India’s downgrading and wanted to know the methodology used to measure corruption across countries. TI’s reply hasn’t been to their satisfaction and that has upset the CVC more.

To most of us living in the country, the CVC’s gesture would look to be mere posturing. this attempt to play around with statistics. It is a bit like the data on inflation – inflation may have dropped to below 1 percent as per the official gazettes, but the potatoes and the cauliflowers at the local vegetable seller don’t seem to be getting any cheaper.

The way things are set up in India, the climate is more favourable to bribe taking and opacity than simplicity of procedures and transparency. Let me give an example: the other day, a friend and a colleague had to get a Trust deed registered at the office of the Registrar of Trusts. After we had put together the Trust deed with the help of a lawyer, and got our photographs and other papers ready, we proceeded to the Registrar’s office. The lawyer encouraged us to leave the matter to him and his staff “Have coffee in my office and I will call you when it is time” was his advice. Once we reached the Registrar’s office, we understood the poignancy of the lawyer’s counsel. There were a bunch of windows and surrounding each was a motley crowd of hands and feet; each trying to make eye contact with the clerk at the other end and simultaneously push through a cluster of papers. The sight would make a typical citizen shudder.

One of the reasons corruption thrives in India is the fact that procedures to get any thing done are so incredibly complex and opaque and there seems to be a deliberate attempt at several levels of officialdom to keep things thus; so that almost invariably, the common man has to take recourse to brokers and middle men to get things done. These men then not only get the things fixed but also act as a conduit for the money that cannot be obviously exposed to the public gaze.

Although e governance has made some difference to the common man by making some aspects of government accessible to the common man, there is a lot to be done. In many instances, complicated and antiquated procedures have simply been mounted on line, and that does not help much.

Coming back to Transparency International and their corruption index, how are the neighbors doing? Well, Bangladesh is at number 147, Pakistan at 134, Nepal at 121, Myanmar at 178, Sri, Lanka at 92. India could pat itself on the back for its South Asia region, except for the fact that tiny and impoverished Bhutan stands at number 45, standing tall.

the Central Vigilance Commission is complaining about the data that Transparency International and quibbling that the number that India ought to occupy ought to be 71 or 73 or some thing in that region. may be instead of squabbling about data, the CVC should send some babus on a study tour of Bhutan to check out just what is it that they do right that we can copy. May copy book style India “jugaar” to reduce corruption will get us better rankings next year than a representation to Transparency International!

Children, Adults, and Other Animals

Vinod Joseph — Tue, 2 Dec 2008 12:09:21 EST

Recently I read the results of a study on children carried out in the UK which said that more than half the British population believed that children behave like animals. More than half the respondents of the study said that children were increasingly a danger to others. More than one-third of those surveyed also agreed that "it feels like the streets are infested" with children, while 43% said something had to be done to protect adults. Half the respondents did not have much sympathy for children who got into trouble and didn’t think they might need professional help.

I was not surprised by the result of this study. In the last 6 years which I have spent in the UK, I have heard many adults express absolute hatred for children. Married couples have proudly told me that not only do they not plan to have kids, but they don’t like kids in the first place. In the UK, it is still illegal to breastfeed a child in public, though it is not illegal to drink in public (I am not against either activity). Passengers in trains and buses raise eyebrows if a baby starts bawling – why should I be inconvenienced by your child is the usual attitude, though a loud mouthed drunk will be cheerfully tolerated.

On the flip side, I have also seen gangs of children terrorise adults. Entire streets become no-go zones after dark, taken over by mobs of children whose ages range from six to sixteen. In some towns where there is high unemployment, it is common to see children playing truant and wandering around in groups even in the daytime. I’ve seen adults travelling in public transport cower into corners when a bunch of children wander in. Child gangs frequently assault people and commit robberies.

This is not to say that they are no well-mannered or hard-working children in the UK. Most children of middle-class parents in the UK are very well-behaved, in fact better behaved than children in India. I have many colleagues and friends who spend a substantial amount of their free time with their children. I had a (male) colleague who took a few weeks off to help his thirteen year old son prepare for entrance exams to a well-known public school. In all probability, the number of ‘good’ children in the UK exceeds the number of ‘bad’ children, but since the ‘good children are not as visible as the ‘bad’ ones, UK’s ‘children’ problem is bound to catch your eye if you live in the UK for more than a week.

There are various theories advanced for this state of affairs in the UK, which is not seen anywhere else even in the western world. The breakup of the family is usually cited as the main reason, though other European countries where family units have broken down do not seem to have similar problems with their children. In the UK, corporal punishment is banned in school. Parents are allowed to mildly smack their children, though any punishment that leaves a mark on a child can land a parent in jail. Interestingly, various European countries such as Norway, Austria, Germany etc. have totally banned any form of parental punishment that involves violence. The rationale is that no human being should have the right to use physical force against another and children very much fall within the definition of ‘human being’.

The situation in India and other Asian countries is in stark contrast to that in the UK. Asian children are pampered to an extent that may be described as ‘unhealthy.’ In some cases, both sets of dotting grandparents are at hand to do the pampering. Children are brought up to believe that they are the most important thing in their parents’ lives. A working woman who has her child taken care of by a nanny or in a day care centre is looked up on with suspicion, as if she is neglecting a sacred duty. Many Indian schools expect their pupils to receive full-time attention from at least one parent, which will invariably be the mother. There are some schools which refuse to admit students if both parents hold full-time jobs. I have always believed that Indian schools teach their children too much unnecessary stuff and give them too much homework (instead of wrapping up studies during school hours), but that’s for another post.

Every time I’ve travelled by air, the most unruly children are the Asian kids, who seem to be incapable of sitting still. Indian parents tend to believe that their children are entitled to make a nuisance of themselves wherever they are and others have a duty to put up with it. Recently there have been a few stories of how Indians have started to refuse to make allowances for children in public places, but by and large, strangers in India are willing to tolerate the shenanigans of children in public places.

In a way I am glad more and more Indians are starting to demand that parents not inflict their children on others, though I don’t think I would like to see India reach the same position as the UK is currently in. I have always taken the view that what’s usually branded as ‘western culture’ is actually the culture of urbanisation and industrialisation, though Japan stands out as an exception to this. As India progresses economically (at least it did till the recent recession and terror attacks in Mumbai), its culture is bound to follow a trajectory similar to that taken by western countries many decades ago. There will be more and more nuclear families, single parents and broken homes as is currently the case in the western world. However, it remains to be seen if Indian society will reach a stage where it has the sort of ‘children problems’ which UK currently has.

In my opinion, continental European countries like France, Italy and Germany are in a much better position than the UK vis-à-vis children. In these countries, one doesn’t hear of children having such a strained relationship with their parents or having serious drinking or drug-related problems. It is difficult to pinpoint the reasons for this disparity among European nations, but if India continues to industrialise and urbanise, I hope it ends up in the continental European position rather than the British one.

Attrition And New Recruits

Tanay Behera — Sun, 1 Jun 2008 10:26:44 EDT

Attrition is a growing concern for many the firms across various sectors in different corners of the world but today the pain is felt more in India. This bruise gets highlighted more in an Indian context because of the growing gap between the growing economy and the engines which are partners in this ride to deliver. Because of employee attrition few initiatives are put on the back burner. The HR managers are having a tough time locating a suitable replacement with required experience and ability, to fill up the vacancies created on account of exit of key employees.

The points that I mention here as to why employees, especially new joinees leave the firm, a little after the embryonic stage of their job career cycle are from what I have seen in the real world corporate dynamics, heard about experiences from friends and few from the learnings and readings from various articles, journals and blogposts. These points are mostly centered around those who have spent their time and energy in the industry (mostly IT/Tech/Tech Services/Engineering) from a range of one year to four years after their graduation from an engineering school or a technical institute. Even few of the points apply to those who don a much higher number of years experience hat. The points mentioned below are not in any order of significance or priority and is just a compendium of views.

1. Opportunities available: The present economy has opened up the doors of opportunities. If a person is skilled, smart and is an inventory of ideas, s/he is like an appetizing cake, waiting for the market to react. Present day progressive forward looking youth aspire to see their career advancement as well as improvement in his financial earnings in the shortest possible time. Demand for smart talent is always there, so when an individual doesn't find his/her present place of work to offer a hotfooting atmosphere, there are other avenues to explore may be in another firm, a start-up or a similar place.

Thanks to his own ambition, and to the Indian outsourcing boom, he escaped. He gained admission to the best engineering school in India, then landed a job that he could hardly have dreamed of as a child: writing software for Oracle, the U.S. technology giant.

"I fell in love," he said, recalling his first visit to Oracle's campus in Bangalore.

But Jain's zest eventually fizzled under the repetitive rigors of the Indian back office. So he did what a parade of burned-out functionaries in Bangalore have begun doing: He quit outsourcing to create his own start-up - in his case, designing cellphone software that blocks calls from telemarketers.

2. Incorrect picture painted in campus placement talks: Many global firms work as different legal entities/operating units but under one global brand umbrella in India. To make things clear, let’s take a fictitious firm 'Desicritics Corp', which has under it many legal entities such as ' Desicritics R&D Center', ' Desicritics Software Services Center', ' Desicritics Consulting Team', ' Desicritics Technologies', etc. In most campus placements, ' Desicritics' would go as a single team for hiring but the offer letters are delivered by the different groups under its canopy. To a campus recruit, who is not aware of all these internal corporate crosswords everything appears to be the same. But after working in the industry for a year or two, when s/he realizes that s/he was offered a cozen pill, looking for opportunities elsewhere is the most pragmatic option.

3. Big names don’t matter much anymore: Today big brands in job market do not draw as much awe as it used to few years back. Big names are subtly occupying increasingly lower positions in a candidate's priority list. Individuals are perfectly fine working with small and mid tier firms because it's a known fact that sometimes the biggies cannot match the salaries offered by successful second-rung companies which functions to an extent on a start up blueprint. More so many big firms have even now withdrawn ESOPs, which were the main draw a few years ago. In contrast smaller companies are able to offer profit-sharing plans, interesting projects and more responsibility at an early stage in the candidate's career. This is like a ready made dish for a candidate working in a big firm shrouded with global policies, indefinite/infinite processes, layers of politics, and most important lack of visibility in a big crowd.

In just 3 short years, the world has changed. When I wrote this column for rediff.com in June 2004, it was still a big deal to join one of the Big Five. Except, perhaps at an IIT.

With the rising aspirations of fresh grads the same jobs have lost their sheen. The net has to be spread wider and wider, to tier 2 and tier 3 colleges, which would not be on the recruitment map at all a couple of years ago.

At a lesser known college it is a matter of pride that 'Infosys picked up 6 students'. The feeling is that of having 'arrived'.

But next year when 60 join, and then 100, the same 'we are being recruited like alu and pyaaz' feeling sets in.

Bottom line is: 'Aapne kaam se maatlab raakho, yeh big brand maain rakha kya hai'.

4. Company and personal goals clash: Many of the smart recruits in many local and global firms are hired through campus placements in engineering schools during the pre-final year days. Placement talks are like major brand shows and each of the hiring firms tries to outshine others in the fray by attractive presentations in diverse formats. Company goals and visions are put forward to candidates and these tastes like the best recipes to accelerate one's career. The message that is sent is: 'With the company's goals, all measures are taken for an employee's personal development also'. I am not denying the fact that there are companies who do orchestrate company's goals and employees' personal goals but the number is less. Come to the work place, the real world is not that hunky dory. This is completely out of phase, of WYWPIWYG assurance (what-you-were-promised-is-what-you-get). In short most of the cases of attrition thrive on the thread that firms place their priorities ahead of employees' goals, without understanding the employees' basic aspirations resulting in friction.

Although their HR depts claim that they have systems which ensure a smooth induction, training and deployment onto projects that isn't quite the case for everyone.

An interesting post related to this ishere.

5. Change in mindset, among individuals and society: Gone are the days, when one stuck to a job even though it was not satisfying, solely on grounds of monetary benefits. The present young generation wants money, no doubt about that, but it's just not money, it has to be enwrapped with stimulating job assignments and responsibilities that tickles one’s tastes. More often than not, the most heard verdict among individuals is.

Besides, they soon learn, the job is not really about programming at all... One such dude sums up the average IT career path on a Pagalguy forum:

There is not much of a ladder is S/W industry as such. For most life is quite typical. One or two years in a company. Then a chance to go onsite and see some money. Then back home. Another 2 years and then one becomes an analyst and after 5-6 years, a manager. And your engineering branch is the last thing that would matter here.

Even parents and family members, do not evaluate much when they realize that their children are not very happy with their professions and wish to pursue something that is completely out-of-the-box and divergent to their present occupations. These parents stand as pillars supporting their individuals realize their dreams. I know of few people who have left their regular 9 to 5 jobs in tech firms to work full-time for a NGO, to practice as a freelance photographer, to run a restaurant, etc. The attrition resulting from this is miniscule but it is happening these days. This case is more like pre-caution is better than cure. So when one realizes that s/he had boarded an in-correct ship that would never reach the destination s/he had sculpted in their mind, so better get down in the initial phase before it’s too late.

6. Higher studies plan: A sizeable number of campus recruits move to the U.S. or other countries to pursue higher studies and explore more attractive career opportunities after working in the industry for a year or two after their graduation. They form a small pool of the attrition camp. Few go abroad for their Masters degree, few for their PhDs and few others stretch their stay in India to apply later for an MBA program abroad later. It's not that foreign lands are the only destinations, these days many prefer to go for a Masters program in the IISc, IITs, NITs, or even BITS in the engineering and tech stream and to the coveted IIMs and other top ranked B-Schools after clearing the CAT in the domain of business management. Even ISB with its global tag in business education along with many other private schools in India partnered with other western schools of Business Management is an irresistible destination for many who wish to put their lives on a fast track road. Every year just before the admission season, many managers wait dumbfounded to see how many of the ambitious wickets would fall.

7. Manager-employee Relationship: A smart manager is one who can understand the aspirations of his/her employee and can harness the true capabilities and potentialities to the last drop, brusquely pointing the areas of improvement among the team members. Now that appears as a picturesque and cheeky definition never to be realized in reality because a greater chunk of IT related work in India is service and maintenance oriented, which in turn is purely dependent on margins and numbers. More often than ever, a manager can't do justice to both numbers and fulfilling aspirations and finds him/her self in a Catch-22 situation. For some inflammation or misunderstanding arising at work, involving the manager and employee, mostly the bosses chalk up the tension to a personality clash. There is a tendency, according to management experts, to think that personality is the cause of organizational discord rather than perhaps an effect of it.

Ben Dattner, an associate at Dattner Consulting executive coaching firm, believes that personality conflict might be a symptom of a larger organizational issue. "When I work with my clients, I often try to get them to see how it is not just a conflict between two people. I try to get them to see that it is also potentially a conflict between two visions, two agendas, two constituencies or two visions for the future."

The most applied remedy in this case by young employees is to nip off the problem at its root, just leave the job and find a job elsewhere that suits to one's personal liking in most aspects. Quite a number of exits happen in many firms because of the above mentioned reason.

8. Team one works for: Fresh out of engineering schools, many graduates have a swelled head for being a product from a top school in India. This is very much human and expected behavioral pattern that this crowd aspires to be a part of best of the available work/assignments in any organization in the initial days of his/her career. But since most of the IT industry in India is doused in services and maintenance layer of the entire business cycle as stated in Point. 7, easy to follow processes are defined to streamline the execution segment with élan and efficiency. After doing the same work in repetitive cycles, it's no rocket science and even a normal graduate can tackle that in the most cost effective way without necessitating the presence of smart engineers who demand higher pay checks for the same job.

This air of exclusivity and clannishness lingers in the minds of many for the initial few years. Unfortunately if they happen to belong to a team that is of a different clan/tribe than their's in many vistas, they connect with their friends and settle in zones that match their bandwidth. A sizeable number of exits in many firms fall under this category.

As I mentioned here, the points stated above are my personal views and are collected from various sources. This is definitely not intended on any organization, firm, group or for that matter anybody and everybody. This is an open post and would love to hear other diverse views, if you have any.

Do You Know Your ABCDs?

Seema Dhindaw — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 00:22:44 EST

“I ain’t confused!” exclaimed Meena on the school bus. I tried to calm her down as she expressed irritation over her cousin calling her an ABCD. ABCD is an acronym for American Born Confused Desi/s. Hearing this phrase for the first time, I wasn’t entirely sure what it meant. A part of me wondered why she took offense to being called confused. Wearing a hijaab and a cotton kurta while bopping her head to catchy hip-hop beats, she was quite puzzling to many of us.

It wasn’t until years later in college that I began to understand what the phrase really meant. It had become increasingly common to call Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi Americans born in the United States “ABCDs.” Depending on the context, being pegged an “ABCD” was alienating due to the underlying prejudices associated with it. While there may be examples of individuals who do indeed exemplify the “ABCD” stereotype, there are just as many if not more, who do not.

A particularly widespread myth about second generation Indian Americans is that by virtue of being born in the US, they get things easy. However if I were to go India, wouldn’t I face more (or different) hurdles than a native? The language, lifestyle, educational system and work environment are in stark contrast from what I have been accustomed to. Despite being born in the US, there have been many circumstances in which I have had to work twice as hard as my American counterparts just to prove my worth. Simply being an American in America doesn’t guarantee an even playing field.

Another popular belief is that American born Desis (ABDs) have rich parents to cushion them financially whenever needed. Growing up, I watched my father’s futile attempts to achieve monetary gains for years. I couldn’t afford to be the spoiled party animal that ABDs are notoriously thought to be. You might wonder if I am an isolated case, but a number of my ABD friends have similar backgrounds. Their parents struggled to provide them with everything possible while earning a very modest income.

Our parents conscious (and sometimes over the top) attempts at preserving our Indian-ness forms the basis for some of the “confusion” detected in the young people raised in America. In addition to financial difficulties, many Indian families also struggle with social and cultural issues. Coming from countries rich in culture, history and religion, parents fear that their children would grow up devoid of the very influences that made up their identity. In many households, including mine, both parents mutually decided that it would be more beneficial for the children if the mother were to stay at home. They feared the total annihilation of “Indian-ness” and the complete infiltration of Western culture and values in their children. Some of these parents let their fears get the best of them and became extremely conservative, like mine. They attempted to create a twentieth century India within their homes that doesn’t even exist in contemporary Indian families in India. They even went so far as to adopt the overzealous Hare Krishna movement often mistaking it for Hinduism itself. At times, I contemplate about who is more “confused", my parents or me. Having made the conscious decision of raising their children in the United States why did they then so religiously prevent any of the country's influences, good or bad, from affecting us? To date, I see Indian parents raising children here making the same old mistakes. It does nothing but widens the gap within the family, creating two distinct schools of thought between the parents and the offsprings. The "confusion" in the ABCD label ltakes root in this very gap.

Our annual summer trips to Indian didn’t really help matters either. In contrast to my Indian cousins who were dating, drinking and dancing to Western tunes, I was only allowed to learn Kathak, couldn’t make friends, or be social. “"Friends are just another distraction" my parents would say worried that too many American friends would lead me astray. I could occasionally listen to Indian music, had to always be studying (preferably math and science only) and was required to go to the temple every Sunday. In protest, I would secretly read novels under the nightlight while in bed or fib about having a mandatory reading assignment from school. While my teenage cousins in India proudly declared that they were atheists and never went to the temple, I was learning to recite Hindu mantras.

Another notorious belief is that ABDs all lose their virginity by sixteen and are “easy.” I have heard many new Indian graduate students make such comments. If they were to actually act on these ideas by attempting to "score" with an American Indian they would realize just how wrong they were. My cousins in India would be out on dates all the time but I couldn't even got to to prom.

On my most recent trip to Mumbai, I saw teenage girls wearing mid-rif bearing tight tank tops and jeans everywhere. The modern day youth enjoy their late night parties, drinking fiascoes and dating habits. They speak with pride about the number of people they have dated and hearts they have broken. It is ironic that while living in India these youngsters ape the Western lifestyle and upon arriving in the United States label those born and raised here as "confused".

Come to think of it, the phrase ABCD inherently and if taken literally is not a negative one; quite frankly, the “confused” state can foster deep thought leading to positive growth and change. This is perhaps what allows us to adopt the best of both Asian and American culture. Considering most of us are clueless about something or the other there isn't really anything wrong with being confused at times. What needs examination is whether the stereotypes associated with this labels are fair.

Note: Most of you probably know me better as Mahasahasrapramardini Namboodiripad, the entertaining ABCD from Aditi Nadkarni’s Desicritics article. I decided that maybe DC could use an ABCD voice on its diverse platform.

Age-Based Reservation in Indian Politics

Vivek Sharma — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 06:42:03 EST

Saurav Ganguly is out of the one day cricket team. I suppose a golden duck is enough to throw him out of the reckoning, though age and agility have been touted as the underlying reasons. I wish we were as strict with the non-performers in government offices. I wish we followed the policy of sacking politicians on age and non-performance basis. There is no fool proof method of ensuring that senile leaders don't win election. In a country where we use the excuse of age to let the batsman in best form and other two with their proven record sit out in a series against Australia, it is too incredible to see bare chested Shah Rukh Khan being accepted in role of twenty year olds, and Rajnikant gross billions as young and dashing protagonist in Sivaji. Yet I am here not to praise the aged, but bury them.

Looking at Indian demographics, we have the age based statistics of India for coming years:

Table 2: Population Projections (in millions)
Year Under 15 15-64 65+ Total
2000 361 604 45 1010
2005 368 673 51 1093
2010 370 747 58 1175
2015 372 819 65 1256
2020 373 882 76 1331

Source: Based on P.N. Mari Bhat, "Indian Demographic Scenario 2025", Institute of Economic Growth, New Delhi, Discussion Paper No. 27/2001.

In a country where we have reservation for everything, including communities that together constitute the majority of population, it is disheartening to see the minority -- old people -- are ruling the nation. While people above the age of 65 constitute only 5% of Indian population, they hold most of the offices of value, including ministries and the presidency. The 33% people, all below the age of 15, are totally unrepresented. Their daddies and mummies (who are fighting against >65 saasus or mothers-in-law) are also under-represented. I suppose and propose age based reservation to get rid of the bias.

The lack of age based equality has lead to gross miscalculation of India's needs and priorities by a minority, age-old political community. No wonder they harp about things that ended with fall of Berlin Wall or crumbling of Russian Empire. No wonder they still think of subsidies in government ration shops and caste-based reservation as the only viable means of making a large section of people happy. Wake up! The share of government as an employer of value has dwindled to the degree that was unimaginable twenty years ago. (I guess they woke up to that possibility, so the brand new education and industrial policy wants to impose caste-based affirmative action everywhere).

We need young leaders. Nearly half of India in 2015 will comprise of people who were born and grew up after the onset of globalization. Nearly half of the Indians by 2015 will have no connection or sentimental attachment to Gandhi family and so candidature of Rahul Gandhi and policies of Congress party that revolve around him are doomed. Nearly half of the country would have no recollection of the fall of Babri Masjid or Advani's Rath Yatra and so BJP needs to reinvent itself. Nearly half of the country would have grown up with hundreds of channels to choose from (including MTV and Fashion TV), will have no televised Ramayana or Mahabharata serials in their memory, and with Tendulkar as their only cricket icon since their birth. The country's morals and regional values would have plummeted beyond recognition.

Most of the working class in the next decade will comprise people who would have no recollection of waiting lines for telephones, cars, scooters and so on that existed in pre-globalization era. Most educated ones will lack capacity to read and write well in their local, ancestral languages, and most would have no recollection of wars with Pakistan, China or riots/blasts in Mumbai. Many would have studied from politically correct bland textbooks and many would have dropped out after high school for high paying BPO night shifts. Many would have grown up in nuclear families, many without siblings and too many with digitized dreams. Most wouldn't know of the Emergency, the lack of Coca Cola for over a decade, the militancy in Panjab and that Pandits ever lived in Kashmir. To give them representation, to give them a voice, to address their concerns and needs requires a fresh breed of leaders, that can be nourished only by age based reservation.

For centuries, people of young age have been kept under the rule of old people. Old people have always had a position of privilige that they have ever used in promoting more old people. Old age is hereditary. The improvement in health services has only increased the potency of old age. Viagra is perhaps responsible for many old leaders continuing to rule even after their retirement age is past due. Even where the father has been minister or politician for thirty to forty years (intermittently at times), the children have to wait till they reach necessary old age to become leaders. The injustice that has continued for centuries must be addressed in a fashion similar to how caste based divisions have been repressed (or was it re-stressed) by reservation. It is high time that the young ones in India launch a struggle to disband the tribe of the minority old people who are occupying the positions of worth. The time has come for the young to truly snatch what is rightfully theirs. In the democracy the majority must rule, and by reservation, we ensure just that. So be it the realm of caste or age, we must follow the policy of affirmative action. The under-represented, under-valued youth in India needs empowerment.

The youth need their rightful say in the governance and decision making. We must re-prescribe the Hindu tradition of Vanaprastha (leaving material life for life in forests) for old people. This will force new blood in the political world of India, and simultaneously increase the number of people leading pious and religious life in the country. Well, for the benefits of Vanaprastha and Sanyasa (total giving up of worldliness), I will ask you to refer to Vedas, Upanishads or maybe their German translations that have been subsequently translated into titles like "Hinduism for Dummies" (or will be translated into such titles). This is no time to let the old lurk as rulers and hurdles in the progress of the majority, the vibrant, the young in India. An age based reservation in politics is the need of the hour.

Remembering Babri Masjid

Sam Siddiqui — Thu, 6 Dec 2007 12:50:49 EST

Who had even heard of it? A nondescript little used mosque somewhere in the city of Ayodhya in central India. On 6 Dec 1992, Babri Masjid became the mosque that no one in India would ever forget, a national wound that 15 years later, still throbs, still pierces the hearts of those who lost forever the security of being at home.

Yet, this should have been the last mosque to stand as a symbol of our inner khalish. According to the District Gazetteer Faizabad 1905: “up to this time (1855), both the Hindus and the Muslims used to worship in the same building. But since the Mutiny (1857), an outer enclosure has been put up in front of the Masjid and the Hindus forbidden access to the inner yard, make the offerings on a platform, which they have raised in the outer one."

Claims of a Ram temple under the mosque had persisted through history, many people believing that Babur had built the mosque after demolishing the temple. No specific mention was made of this in the Babur Nama though, and some historians believe Babur merely repaired the edifice, not built it. Regardless, on that fateful day, 75,000 - 200,000 saffron-clad militants, mostly from the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, climbed over the edifice to bring it down, to rescue the Janmabhoomi of the Gods.

My memories of the day are scattered. At the time, it seemed like some far away, alien happening on another planet. Did things like this happen in India? We heard about it and saw it on television, but it was still all very unbelievable. Who were all these people and what did they want? An old mosque? We had seen the rath yatra passing before our house some days back, an exercise in sensationalism that had all looked very filmi to me.

It was a stark piece of reality to many others. In Ayodhya, Muslims were afraid and changed their nameplates to avoid recognition. The air resonated with the sentiments one would associate with pages of ancient history.

"Every civil building connected with Mahommedan tradition should be levelled to the ground without regard to antiquarian veneration or artistic predilection.” British Prime Minister Palmerston’s Letter No. 9 dated 9 October 1857, to Lord Canning, Viceroy of India, Canning Papers.

People locked themselves in their home and uneasily peered outside. The kar sevaks were going through the streets of Ayodhya, mocking the fabric of Indian communal harmony, tearing it as they went. There was pain and disbelief on the faces I saw, shock at the demolition and the feeling of being abandoned and being betrayed by their countrymen. Houses were razed, people killed and maimed each other. Bombay was under curfew (!!Bombay!!). There were bomb blasts in the city, something that was not a common everyday occurrence at the time. I heard of a bearded man who had been burned alive, only later did they find out that he was Parsi, not Muslim.

Very very surreal to me. All this over a building?

My good friend at the time called and apologized to me for it. Why? Because she was Hindu. I was flabbergasted. What did I have to do with a decrepit mosque I had never seen? Why did she need to apologize for unknown strangers doing things un-Indian? I remember she gave me three hand-embroidered handkerchiefs and a card about national Unity.

I was bemused and realised in her own way, she was showing her solidarity to our friendship and was upset over my perceived alienation by the incident. Cemented with chai breaks and crying over each others shoulders through five years of college, did we really need a card to tell us we're okay? I hugged her and said, "It was just an old building I had never seen." It had nothing to do with me. Truly, it was how I felt.

The Babri Masjid demolition was a pivotal moment in our history. It established firmly that fundamentalism had come home to stay, that religion, from that moment on, would be a defining factor in Indian politics and society, that rather than Indian, we were Hindus and Muslims. It ushered in the era of Hindutva and Islamic fundamentalism in India. The BJP and Shiv Sena became household names in all Bombay as well as the rest of the country. In Bombay, we lost our complacency that communalism was not for us. We became Mumbai and blended in, lost our spark, a recognition that whatever had happened to us those two months changed us forever. No longer could we boast of our cosmopolitan and secular nature. It wasn't just us either, there was arson, looting, rape and destruction of temples in nearby Bangladesh.

Today, the site of the demolition is under the protection of the Supreme Court. Our interminably slow justice system ponders and ponders over what should be done. The Liberhan Commission set up in 1992 to investigate the circumstances of the demolition has become the longest running Commission in the history of the country. Bureaucracy and Politics plod on.

I hear many opinions on what should be done. The government should rebuild the mosque, say guilt-stricken Hindus, with a temple nearby. A monument to Unity is needed here, say others. Muslims are curiously reluctant to offer their opinions, the ones who care also feel they have lost the right to have a say, they have been evicted from their home. The ones who don't care can't see what the fuss is about. Build a school and educate the people, they say, offhandedly.

Speaking to many people on this issue this week, I was struck by something unusual. The lack of blame. Did Muslims blame the Hindus for the demolition. No, said the ones I spoke to, it was a momentary fanaticism. Even Hindus who recalled their support of the issue at the time admitted to a feeling of dismay, shame and disbelief that they could have ever been involved in this. "Just goes to show how easily people are misled," they say, shaking their heads, as if to shake off the memories of their naivete.

To me, its all still surreal. Half a lifetime ago, on a different planet. Not my India.

Spam Struck

Aditi Nadkarni — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 05:41:24 EST

"Would you like to add 8 inches or more to your penis?" asked the email in the most casual of tones.

I was stumped. I have spoken to a lot of people in all of my twenty-seven years and never been asked that. Also, having never given this particular question a serious thought I now considered the posibility for several seconds. Needless to say, I don't have a penis and 8 inches or more could make a whole, functional one. But while having a nice, long dick might even be fun for a change, I have always secretly pitied men for having their very sensitive reproductive organ be so accesible. So, no, I concluded, I did not wish to add 8 or more inches to my penis.

"Not even two or three inches, thank you" I muttered much to the confusion of my colleagues as I determinedly hit the Spam tab.

A few days later an aunt who had just very recently been introduced to the world-wide web wrote me an interesting email.

"Take a look at this email I received" she urged. Below was a lengthy forwarded message.

"It is with a deep sense of trust and brotherliness that I convey to you this news which I hope will not cause you any emotional distress" began the email making my stomach churn.

"I am Daren K, the Director of the Plks Bank Of Nigeria and am writing to you about the dormant savings of an account holder Wasidullah Nadkarni who died without electing a next of kin" continued the email with the sad news of beloved Wasidullah's death.

It is at times like this that I wish more than ever that my grandfather was alive.

"Wasidullah had no shame" he would've announced wagging a frail, vehement finger in the air, "Had he no care for the family's name...we are Brahmins! How dare he convert to Islam without informing the family elders!" he would've roared and then purposefully typed out a reply to Mr. Daren K completely convinced that Wasidullah Nadkarni had to be one of his estranged brethren.

"Dear brother Daren K, while we have no interest whatsoever in Wasidullah's enormous and unclaimed savings we will be arriving in Nigeria to carry out his last rites as per Hindu tradition." the email would've read and a worried Daren K would've never written to another Nadkarni again.

"Delete the email, its just spam" I promptly wrote to my aunt who had since then expressed worries of Wasidullah Nadkarni being the village bumpkin Wasanta Nadkarni who had gone to Dubai and never returned.

My own parent's attitudes have been stoic in the face of illustrious and uplifting lottery news that arrives daily in their inbox.

My dad in particular has a very practical yet slightly pessimistic logic in dealing with such news no matter how authentic it sounds.

"I have never gotten anything in life without working my tail off and so it is highly unlikely that Coca-Cola would send me a one hundred, thousand pound lottery....especially when I despise their product so much" he once stated very matter-of-factly.

Then there is Poetry.com which sends all aspiring poets letters of deep appreciation. One could enter "My Bonnie lies over the ocean" as a contest entry and will still receive voluble praise for their poetic talent. "World's Poet Of The Year" or some such heavyweight title is printed across the very top of the letter making many a young and naive poet's heart flutter in anticipation of the glorious journey they were about to embark upon. Then towards the end it becomes clear that one needs to pay about a hundred dollars and then some to get a plaque with "Poet Of The Year" engraved on it. And whats more you even get to buy your own book. How wonderful.

Now, isn't that what every talented literary genius wants, to be the only one buying their work? I have decided to walk over to Things Remembered and get myself a "World's best poet, author and just everything talented in general" award with the signature of some obscure person at the checkout counter. I think it might cost me less. Also the Gods Of Math have blessed me with the understanding that the leather bound coffee table edition that Poetry.com promises is a lot more expensive than printing out my poem and reading it over and over again.

How can one forget the whole weight loss industry with marketing personnel who cannot rest until everybody in the world is on some sort of a diet.

"Have you tried the cabbage diet?" Mona religously enquires every other Saturday.

I have half a mind to write back and ask her if she has ever tried the no-spam diet. While the cabbage diet could lead to some serious gas, a no-spam diet has no such flatulent gastrointestinal manifestations.

There was a time when I was new to the internet and the dot com trend was sweeping the cyber world. One could find websites with practically everything followed by a dot com. I began receiving offers for crystal and ceramic miniatures to decorate my bookshelves with. Shelfart.com would dedicately convince me each week as to why my home looked less like a home without any crystal or ceramic ornaments to brighten things up. When they did stop writing I was heartbroken. I wondered if they had finally figured out that while ShelfArt was a pretty cool play on words, ShelFart was not.

Years later now, Shelfari sends me mails from people in my address book asking "Do we like the same books?". How does it matter, I wonder. I don't even know when and why it became so important to find out if two people shared their taste in books.

Orkut of course has opened up a whole new range of unwanted emails. They are personalized and very sweet at times when the grammar isn't atrociously bad.

"Please, can I do friendship with you?" wrote a guy, "Your smile is like Madhuri Dixit" he added and I immediately forgave him for the incorrect and slightly dirty sounding "do friendship". While a Madhuri-smile should probably have no bearing on friendship, he did manage to flatter me quite effectively. I have to admit, sweet-talk is my favorite dessert. So I took a quick, noncommittal peek at his profile almost gushing from this unexpected comparison to La Dixit. And then it took me about twelve seconds to hurriedly reject his friend request once I saw "Shokeen Auntiyaan" listed among his favorite communities. That explained why he would want to "do" friendship.

Spam has become so much a part of my life now that if I don't hear from Tamara Coon who convinces me every single day that "Size does matter", I begin to worry that something's happened to her. When I don't hear from friends and family as often as I like, I send them emails telling them that I have spammers who love me more than they do.

Even as I type this post, I take a quick glance into my inbox and there sits an email posing a question that has long since haunted my psyche leaving me sleepless on many a night.

"Do you like your nipples pinched?" asks Tony Silver

"I thought they'd never ask" I whisper with a smile as the emphatic click of delete resounds.

Are Women Leaders Any Different?

Shantanu Dutta — Wed, 7 Nov 2007 12:13:43 EST

Newsweek has in recent weeks been dealing with the subject of women in leadership roles and asking the question in various ways - what does it mean for a woman to be a leader? In what way, do they do things differently than men for instance?The coverage has been through feature stories as well as profiles of women leaders as well as interviews of women leaders. One of those featured in an interview is Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a politician from Liberia.

Ellen has this to say :

"I believe women in leadership can be a little more sensitive to human needs, show more respect for life and dignity. In the past, I've been considered as one with a strong will, as a firm disciplinarian. But now, I'm most concerned with being a mother to Liberia. I want to heal the deep wounds of this nation, particularly among our youth. One must show loving care to them. One must be motherly to them, and make them feel wanted.”

These are noble and kind words and if indeed women are bringing more sensitivity to human needs and show more respect for human life and all that, then we ought to be having more and more women in leadership. But somehow, surveying the horizon, it does not look that way. Sure there are competent women leaders and they are raising by the day and that is good, but that does mean that because of such women leaders, society is more humane?

Shortly after I switched on the television to hear that ICICI Bank had been fined a whopping 50 Lakhs by a consumer court for trying to recover a vehicle using recovery agents who used metal bars to injure a supposedly defaulting customer, except that they didn’t even get the correct person. The fact that this has made to even overseas magazines like Forbes can’t be helping the bank's image much especially at a time when it is trying to expand overseas significantly.

ICICI Bank's CEO, K.V.Kamath was recently awarded the Business Leader of the Year award by the Economic Times at a function in which the finance minister presided. Kamath has undoubtedly nurtured a giant banking behemoth, no doubt about that. He is also known for his efforts in empowering women. According to CNN –Money:

Kamath has consistently chosen women rather than men to realize his vision for ICICI, where women account for 30% of the staff. But he denies he has given them preference for top jobs. "It's clearly a result of merit and of not distinguishing between a man or a woman," he says. His criteria have been to pick "leaders with ability, intellect, and the entrepreneurial ability to lead teams" - and he values women's "ability to think in a much more detached manner than men."

I am sure that Kamath has done all that and that his leadership has been quite extraordinary. In fact, the rest of the article goes on to say how many of the women employees are competent and efficient and could have earned a lot more elsewhere but stayed on with ICICI Bank because of the environment that was provided to them in which they were nurtured and grew.

But looking at all the home grown women leaders that ICICI Bank has provided and the news I get to hear about the bank’s business practices – whether it be done directly by them or a recovery agent hired by them, the comments of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf come back to mind… all those high sounding words about life, dignity, human needs and all that. I am left with the question that remains unanswered – women in leadership roles is a good thing from a gender perspective surely, but in terms of the values, practices and priorities that they bring to the table – are they any different as Ellen Johnson would have us believe ?

How To Deal With Surveys

Uma Ranganathan — Sun, 7 Oct 2007 10:42:05 EDT

Today's papers carry a report on the current thinking on fish. What they're now saying is that it is good for pregnant women, regardless of possible mercury contamination because the advantages of eating fish outweigh the hazards of any contamination. I figured that if fish was good for pregnant women it had to be good for me as well, even if I’m not pregnant, which is a heartwarming bit of news because it is one of my favorite foods. Fish is not only a major source of protein but said to contain certain essential amino acids which are not found in the tissue of plants or other animals.

Now coming to red meat. Red meat which was once considered the villain behind colon cancer is currently off the danger list, especially for people over a certain age. (What that age was I forget now, due to increasingly frequent memory lapses, but most likely it includes me). There is no proof that red meat is detrimental to health, they say. (“They” is a term I have standardized on to refer to “experts” in various fields, the same way many women refer to their husbands as “he” and mother-in-laws as “she”).

What I am slowly getting at is, what is one supposed to make of surveys which hit the headlines every couple of days contradicting everything you had read about a particular item last week or last month? I don’t know how you deal with it but I’ve decided that I’m going to make a list of everything I love to eat and drink and then check on all the good things they say about them and what’s more believe them.

Let’s start with coffee. Can’t begin my day without it. For years coffee had the reputation of being almost a killer drink, damned on account of its causing everything from high blood pressure and heart disease to colon, bladder and pancreatic cancers. Today they’re claiming that drinking moderate amounts of coffee improves memory and among other things reduces the risk of Parkinson’s disease. No prizes for guessing which side I’m on.

I’ve always loved red wine as well as beer but have been daunted by all that is said about alcohol being bad for osteoporosis which about ninety five per cent of the women are supposed to develop in later years. Considering osteoporosis runs in my family and how deformed my great grandmother’s back became because of it, you can understand my qualms. The thing is my fear never really stopped me from drinking either wine or beer (and fairly impressive quantities of it when I was on a trip to Europe) but it made me feel horribly guilty and bad about what I was doing to myself and possibly hastening the onset of a crippling disease.

But - as everybody and his brother knows, red wine is now looked upon almost as a vitamin tonic. From helping to ward off heart attacks to lowering cholesterol, red wine (again, when consumed moderately) is being almost touted as a health drink. They don’t mention the effect it has on osteoporosis any more (at least the surveys I’ve been looking at with an unashamedly biased eye) but here’s some good news I just discovered for beer drinkers. “Beer,” according to an article I just found on the net by a certain Bryce Eddings (don’t ask me who he is but - God bless him for the vital information he's provided - I decided to trust my instinct and believe him anyway) “also reduces blood clots and it has been shown to improve mental function in women as well as increasing bone density.”

As for cigarettes. One is positively ashamed to admit one’s sneaking fondness for the weed. Part of the reason I’ve stopped smoking on a daily basis and stick to what they call “OP brand” (Other People’s brand) is the raised eyebrows and figurative rap on the knuckles you get from all and sundry, especially little (and big) old ladies you bump into at the odd café or restaurant, when you so much as look at a ciggie, let alone fumble nervously and interminably with a match to light one. But now they’re saying that smoking is likely to delay the onset of that dreaded old age scourge – Alzheimer’s disease. Most likely you’ll be dead from cancer or a heart attack long before Alzheimer’s sets in, but by then you’re anyway beyond caring. So one way or another what they say about cigarettes and Alzheimer’s somehow rings so true I’m looking out for the next person from whom I can filch a fag.

Surprisingly the one item about which nobody has been able to say anything good, which seems to have no redeeming features and yet which is not considered a public hazard as yet, are potato chips. I like them, though they’re the kind of thing which I try to hold off because once one of those tricky little guys has made contact with my tongue I become oblivious to what my hand is doing, until the goddamn bowl is empty. However, fellow potato chip lovers, I’m sorry for this bad news. Chips are downright evil. French fries, chips, wafers and all fried things made out of potatoes, according to all the surveys I’ve been reading, are positively toxic, releasing as they do a very bad chemical called acrylimide which can damage nerve cells and cause cancer. In addition they are burdened with calories and have no – I repeat, absolutely NO nutritional benefits.

So, well, if I have to toss something out of my diet it will be chips I guess. Makes me sad but all said and done I can survive without them. Yeah, I think I’ll just stop eating any kind of chips from tomorrow. I mean who wants to load their bodies with thousands of extra calories dipped in cancer causing acrylimide and re-used oil? I am already beginning to feel virtuous about being kind to my body. In fact it makes me feel so good I think I’ll celebrate my new found austerity with an extra glass of wine and a last bag of potato chips.