The Recession Effect...

Ah... Sometime to blog after a short break. Time is a required condition to blog; but it's in no way sufficient. I mean you could have a whole day of free time, but you might not feel like writing anything at all. Off late, there have been quite a few instances like these that reduced my blogging frequency and also put our movie script on hold for a while. (Did I tell you about the script? If not, I will... but in another post :))

There used to be days when every Indian street had at least 10 Government officers... These days, there are at least 10 people from every Indian street currently residing in the US and this is true at least in the metros and cities. So quite naturally, news about US easily sells and has a lot of demand too. For those from the previous generation who still feel computers are too tough to cope up with, news papers and magazines combined with TV news makes their breakfast, lunch and supper. The magazine editors have noted this demand perfectly, and they make it a point to publish some news about the trend in US. When there is no news to publish, they make up one! :) Man... These days, the second part of it is getting slightly overboard and as much as it irritates me, it's funny on the other side. Now that clouds of recession are surrounding the US the news that they come up with become all the more interesting and hilarious! A few interesting headlines that I could remember:

"Mortgage industry topples in US... Houses available for 1000$"
(Mind voice: Err... Did you mean dog houses?)

"Despite reducing prices to 500$ none is buying a home"
(M.V: Will you please give me a call when you find one such 'real' house?)

"Obama has planned to ban H1B employment"
(M.V: Are you by any chance the secretary of state? :))

"Giving privilege to citizens and workers is against business ethics."
(M.V: EKSI. Had this been India and there are so many foreigners employed; while millions of Indians are jobless, we would've gone on an indefinite strike! That is democracy but this is Bureaucracy?)

The most interesting part of this is the attitude of 'ponna petthavainga' (parents who have a girl ready to be married). Sometime back I wrote a short story (since this is my blog, I take the liberty to call it a short story :D) on how computer engineers were considered hot cakes in the matrimonial market. Now that there is some level of instability in the US market, the trend has completely reversed. "Software Engineers excuse!", "Prefer Indian groom" and statements on these lines aren't too tough to hear and see. If there's something that pisses me off big time, it is this attitude from the Indian parents. I mean somehow they tend to lose their rationale and end up in this extremely conservative outlook. IT is not the only sector that is affected by recession and not all persons from core departments get work in their respective departments. IT companies have a lot of civil, mechanical, textile and production engineers too... At the same time, if someone is working in some other field it doesn't mean that he is inferior (as they thought before) or superior (as they are thinking now). It's just a question of the individual's potential, aspiration and interest. I sincerely hope that the parents who pressurize their kids, to choose a branch of their choice and always go with the popular beliefs to get a groom for their child realize their mistake and let their children live!

P.S: Recession is indeed threatening a lot of jobs in the US. The Govt is in the process of enforcing the regulations as much as possible; causing a lot of desis (specifically manavaadus) return home. Most of them would've been here under the banner of a non-existent company or a staffing agency in the name of a company. There are many others whose projects came to an end and had no choice but to return to India; but hey... that's the way the system was supposed to work. If a foreign national who came into the US for work, lost his job and couldn't find an alternate job in 2 weeks time he is supposed to go back to where he came from. Till date, these rules were taken lightly and now it's being enforced thoroughly. That's what the difference is!

Opis komedies...

Title inspired from my friend Srini's series, this was a topic that I wanted to write for a quite long time especially after seeing the regular posts on these lines by Srini... But somehow, office never interested me and to think of office outside work sucked big time! And right now I'm in an office where I work 12 hrs a day and I'm expected to put in more horse power when the others in my team work not a minute more than 8 hrs. Indian, contractor and too many other qualifications got me into this note worthy post... :))

Anyways, this post was intended to be hilarious and so be it! :D To begin with, let me introduce you to the work 'atmosphere' that I have in my office... My project is a truly globalized project because within a small team of 4 members, there is a mix of culture from 4 countries... Yes... All of us are from different countries - India, Pakistan, China and (thankfully at least one from) US. The manager is Pakistani and he is middle aged while the Chinese lady and the American guy are pretty old. My team apart, for every US company listed in the stock market, there will be a Desi (Indian) vendor and there will be a bunch of Indians loitering around in their offices... My office is no exception too and interestingly in a group predominantly comprised of Manavaadus (telugu speaking folks) the guy who sites behind me is a Mallu... The best part is that this state has a lot of black population and I swear to God, "it ain't no simple to follow 'em man"! The guy who sites right across me crowns them all and he has an office that is so crowded with stuff that you wonder how on the world could a 5X5 cubicle be converted into such a deep mess.



Now that you have an idea of the 'atmosphere', I'll tell you some of the very funny thoughts that ran in my mind...

The guy across, eating chips with the pack fitted into his mouth, turning the packet upside down...
Mind voice: Why am I being reminded of an elephant here?

Mallu guy talking to some clients... "The cOmbleet desayn is kOnstrukkkkkktad Offshore andu vee veel be moovingg the fayals tumaarow..." (The complete design is constructed offshore and we will be moving the files tomorrow)
Mind voice: Setthaan edhiri... (Poor Americans!)

The old guy in our project explaining me the logic to copy and archive files...
It ain't gonna do good if the file don't be there. Somthin shoots up and we say no way we lost it all... Send 'em back. So we gonna tell the scheduler Backup... Don't do no delete... Put it up in a folder and gimme a copy. But he's gonna tell you..."
M.V: EKSI

I had a doubt about the way a certain module is built and I was too lazy to go through the code. Since the chinese lady in our project was the only one left, I had to ask her and I had no choice...
Me: Can you tell me if this is written in Java or through an Oracle job?
C.L: Laximan didndnt tall mee iz was phebruary code. Aye checked zhe log paails anzh I thot I didndnt gettu zhe idea... When I go too zhe logs, I see zhe files dare"
M.V: Idhukku code-ae paravaalla (Digging the code sounds much better...)

My manager and I were discussing a small piece of code... He doesn't have much of technical knowledge and Java somehow greatly surprises him...
Me: It's not a good practice to hit the database when the poller actually does nothing until the files arrive. So I've moved the database connectivity inside the if block. I've also eliminated the thread that is causing the memory leak in the scheduler and instead I'm bringing that functionality in here"
Manager nodding all the way...
M.V: Purinjaa maadhiriyae thalaya aattu... (As if you understand...)

:D :D

P.S: Basically all of them are good folks and it's just that at some situations, the mind voice of the Maduraikkaaran invariably crops up... :D

The end of IT era?

Following the trough in the US economy, the much sought after IT sector faced/faces a great blow in India. Many companies stopped promotions, started indirect firing, reduced the pay to benchers and indicated their economic vulnerability in a lot of ways; and this brought a few interesting questions to my mind. How stable is the IT industry? If $ falls tomorrow (after all they are all paper bills and carry no real significance), will the IT industry still survive? What will happen to the 'elite-society' of today?

Honestly, I feel if $ falls, it's surely going to take down IT with it. We all know there are projects outside US... Indian market itself is worth billions of dollars and all that crap. But US plays a very significant role in keeping the industry alive for two reasons - 1. As with any other commodities, they are THE consumers of IT services. There are other consumers too but relying on them for minting money isn't going to work because their volume of consumption put together, is not even 1/10th of US and 2. The profit margin is not going to be as high. The exchange rates might be better than USD but considering the volume of operations, it is going to yield only insignificant profits. Perhaps reason 2 is a derivative from reason 1. The industry will not obviously vanish; but maintaining the lion's share is out of question.

The worst nightmare for the Indian government would be the day this happens. Imagine thousands and thousands of educated jobless youngsters in the society. Perhaps 10% of them might be smart enough to switch fields or start their own business or do something that works to survive. But what about the rest? It reminds me of my high school days when I used to write civics exams where the most common question would be "What are the economic problems of India" and point #1 would be population and point #2 would be unemployment. We never gave upon #1 but #2 might take a new dimension if IT goes for a toss.

Pudhiya thatthuvam 100020: Kannaa vaazhkai oru vattam maadhiri... Innnaikki maela irukkuravan naalaikki keela iruppaan... Innaikki keela irukkuravan naalaikki maela iruppaan! :D

Let's get to work

One prominent advantage of being in IT industry is that it offers (arguably) the most colorful work atmosphere that is a cocktail of people from various backgrounds who are notably different in many aspects including accent, behavior, appearance, character, approach, political view and almost everything human, you could imagine. Perhaps IT is the true Bharatha Vilas that has a sample of thousands of diversified Indians in one location and quite obviously any one with a moderate sense of humor will have a good time herel at least with the work place. (Projects suck though :D)

You could see clean shaven, formally dressed, extremely sincere, highly talented... ok I could've made it simpler saying 'nerds'... who exist for the computer, by the computer and of the computer and his immediate neighbor would be the one who spends most of the time talking to his girl friends, reading news sites (inpormation is wealth :D), checking stock prices and playing ping pong (I no longer call it TT coz I'm in the US ;) :D)! Ironically this guy would be sent onsite (the biggest dream for anyone who enters the industry afresh and a requirement for someone who has been around for a while) while the nerd would still be venting out his hard feelings to his wife a.k.a the computer. You could invariably see someone at the cafetaria or the coffee vending machine irrespective of the time and the most commonly discussed topics would be the cruel attitude of their managers, useless nature of the project and of course girls... (guys if it were girls holding the tea cups)

With almost equal number of guys and girls, that too youngsters, you would be never short of Romeos and Juliets (at least they think so :)) out here. Murphy's law somehow holds good for most of the guys and those who are handsome and/or looking out for girls will invariably end up in a dry-project (no girls) and they will be the only ones to remain in that project forever when everyone else gets released from the team due to downsizing or ramp down as they call it. However the normal distribution curve takes the shape of a sort inclined at 10 degrees (counter-clockwise to be more accurate) when it comes to the probability of finding a good chick. If you ask a girl she might tell the same thing about guys too but the degree of inclination will not be as low as 10 degrees for sure :) But that's not the worst part. The worst part is when an average looking girl who was admirable in simple dresses will suddenly be promoted to the 'pigar op the project' status resulting in diametric changes in behavior and importantly dressing style. Like Surya says in Kaakka kaakka she always walks with her head held (too) high and will start wearing dresses that would scare the s%^t out of Ramarajan.

The sampling technique of India is even fine tuned when it comes to sending resources on deputation (typically to US) which results in a even better mix of varying cultures. Andhra guys use 'aa' as a universal question tag (the movie is good'aa', had good food'aa'), Tamizh guys form sentences that are literally translated from their mother tongue (I'm saying that only no), Mallu guys specialize in providing a German tone to English (Ee said ee wond be kamming to the Oooofees) and Northies are known for their accents (thaharty {30}) and sentence formations (Now only I'm saying this that I won't be able to come yar); and they are all a part of this ecosystem and many a times the species co-exist (as roomies) doubling the fun to anyone who watches them converse.

But the best of the lot is to see a bunch of girls working for the same project on a US deputation. All of a sudden they'll all turn into Annalakshmis adorned in trousers and a bright colored shirt. Not to mention the cosmetics and the pink colored lipsticks :D They come very early to the office (I mean seriously) around 8 AM and go out to get a cup of coffee. By the time they come back (around 9 AM), everyone would start coming to office. They go to their cubes or 'offices' as they call it here and start checking their mails. Then comes a flurry of meetings and if you want me to describe what happens in a meeting, I remember my friend's way of defining it - "Feeling lonely, Getting bored, Wanna feel important - call for a meeting" . More or less that is how a meeting is and they'll have continuous meetings from 9 - 12 (lunch time) and you should look at them when they switch between meetings carrying loads of paper work, heaving a sigh of despair, walking faster than someone who is running... Honestly you would be damned if someone says they are not having much of a work load. 12 - 1:30 is the lunch hour where everything happening in the world is brought to the table; and by the time they come back to their cubes it will be about 1:45. The second round of mail checking begins and 3 PM sharp they break for tea which lasts for about 30 minutes. Upon return they take a power nap before the 17" monitor and the first one who wakes up gives a wake up call to everyone and off they go at 5 PM. If something seems to prevent their routine, they often visit each other's offices just so that someone visiting their office would think they are out in a meeting. Trust me... It's unbelievable fun for someone who observes them carefully. But the best part is the manager will never know anything because he comes in my 10 (and everyone in the gang would be in by then) and will leave at 4 (when these people are sincerly taking their power naps). But a poor guy who asks for a vacation or comes in at 10:05 would be called for a one-one; which means abusing a person without using the slang! :D

All in all, IT has not been an enjoyable experience to me once I crossed the initial few days where I learnt a lot; and since then the only good point I could think of as being offered by IT industry is this entertainment and honestly it deserves a special recognition... :)

P.S: This is purely based on personal experiences and if you are a girl who is on a deputation and working hard all along (chances of which are pretty less), please understand that the article has been written in a generalistic and light sense. Exceptions are not examples! :)

Good bye 2013

Wondering why I'm talking about 2013 when we are in 2008? Well... it's not the year but my (ex-)apartment number. Has been my first residential accommodation in Tampa or rather US; and it had been so till a couple of days back. Had been a nice year at 2013 and fortunately my roomies were also in perfect sync with my wavelength and I should say I enjoyed staying there except for the fact that the apartment was in a pretty bad shape (courtesy the previous residents). Ideally I should be missing the place but somehow I'm hardly having feelings of any sort about 2013.

Pondering over that justifies my stand without much of an analysis. Life in the US has largely been driven by need and demand rather than emotion and relationships. Strangers become friends because you need a ride and friends become strangers because you don't stay with them anymore. A true friend can be assessed not only at the times of distress but also during stays abroad especially when he happens to be your roomie. Friends thick as thieves part so easily after a couple of months of stay together because the adjustment factor is reduced infinite times once you start working and earn as much as the other person staying with you. More than anything else, everyone is here to save money and that being the primary factor, other factors like affection, relationship, respect to individuals and values are pushed to the backseat. Pretty naturally, one gets tuned to this environment so soon and the way s/he reacts to situations changes dramatically by this artificiality. When artificiality steps in, the sense of belonging and attachment goes for a toss just like a saint who loses interest in world and earthly pleasures.

So it's quite illogical to correlate 2013 to our ancestral house that we vacated a few years back and it is as illogical to wonder why I didn't have that sense of discomfort while vacating the apartment. After all, the ancestral house spoke to me of my heritage and reminded me of people who made and molded me. Over here, I feel that I'm like a traveler walking along the endless shore of a deep blue sea, collecting the pebbles as I go along; finding some of those pebbles worth preserving and some others not worth carrying. But whether it was a good collection or a bad collection, neither the shore nor my travel ends.

HP Pavilion dv6700t and 'Internet Explorer has stopped working'

Ever since I or rather we (a couple of my friends too) bought the HP Pavilion dv6700t for 1080 bucks with the best configuration (as on the date of purchase), we were happy about everything except Internet Explorer. Every time I closed an IE window, I got an error message that said "Internet Explorer has stopped working" and eventually as a recovery measure Vista will reopen the IE window. Initially I was led to believe that it's a compatibility problem between Vista and IE. But none of my friends who got the other brands (Dell, Sony, etc) faced this issue despite using Vista. I predominantly use Firefox for surfing (even now I'm using Firefox for adding this post) but some sites, especially Microsoft related sites (exchange servers, extranet clients) that are inevitable from the work perspective, work umpteen times better in IE than any other browser. At times, the only browser supported is IE.

After endless searches and frustrations, I landed up on the solution. It had nothing to do with Vista or IE. The problem was with the Yahoo! tool bar for IE that is installed by HP. You know what it took to address the problem?

1. Go to Control Panel - Switch to Classic View - Click on Internet options
2. Go to the Advanced tab and click the 'Reset' button at the bottom of the Advanced tab.
3. Say 'Yes' or 'OK' wherever you are asked for confirmation.

That's it. Your HP dv6700t works completely fine with IE. The only question I had was 'How did HP miss this basic thing and ship its laptop with an incompatible tool bar?!'. But getting an answer to that was not as important as fixing the issue I had! :)

Is outsourcing bad?

A few months back, the client company for which I was deputed in US decided to switch software/software service vendors and eventually that means that employees from our company would be replaced by the employees of the competitor. But quite unexpectedly this created a buzz in the little town where we live. The link below is an excerpt from a local newspaper's website.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/article456721.ece

There are a lot of legal and moral issues listed in the article but what attracted me was the comments section. There were so many people who considered that outsourcing is a threat to the employment of US population and foreigners especially Indians take away a lot of their opportunities. Looking at this whole thing from a conservative bird's eye view, there are a lot of reasons to believe so. Some of them are

1. A lot of Indians could be spotted in Oldsmar (the town where I live) especially in and around the client location.

2. Apartments meant for the economically lower section of the US society (the labor class) are largely filled by Indians (the rent is cheap!!!).

3. The state transport buses which were once miracles in Oldsmar could be spotted quite frequently these days. And guess who's travelling - Indians.

4. Gym, swimming pools, public courts, you name it - Indians are everywhere and even worse, their population has grown like insects and the facilities are constantly occupied by them.

5. Walk around the client office and chances are that you end up seeing an Indian in every direction you turn. This may not be true with Americans. :)

And what is the sole reason for having so many Indians - outsourcing and hence outsourcing is bad. This is what majority of the local population believes.

So is this true? Or rather what is the degree of truth in these statements? Let us take a closer look.

The first and foremost thing is cost of operation to the US companies. A truly capitalistic nation should try to minimize its expenses and do good to its people and that's precisely what US does as on date. If an American charges $100 per hour for a job, an Indian does it for $20 or $30. This might sound untruthful but this is the reality. And guess what - the person who comes to the client location has all the expenses that a normal American has and still he is paid peanuts. And surprrrrrrrrrrise! The Indian is able to save quite some money and spend it for his economically downtrodden family back in India. What this means is that an average American charges n times as much as an Indian worker for the same job and trying to justify this, is a policy that US hates - communism.

Second is an impression that Indians do not pay taxes. I'm not sure how much an American pays as taxes. But as an Indian in US, I could say for sure that Indians pay a considerable sum of their earnings as taxes.

Third, the development of businesses that depend on demand-supply system are largely benefited by the floating population. Instances are groceries, household appliances, leasing, mortgage, automobiles, garage, etc.

I could keep listing reasons in this direction but suffice it is to say that outsourcing serves as a benefit to the American client, the American Government, the Indian/American vendor and thousands of Indian families. If the objective is to truly reduce outsourcing and make sure that local population is getting employed, the right way to do it is to compete with the Indian employees in the cost quoted just like it happens in any other business. After all, the lowest bidder wins and so is the case here! Might be hard to digest but this is the naked truth behind all these outsourcing myths.

Onsite-Offshore model

If you are familiar with IT (Information technology) jargons, the term 'Onsite Offshore model' would not be new to you. But if you are not remotely related to IT, then this might sound as beautiful a phrase as 'for the people, by the people and of the people' would sound to a citizen under a tyrant's rule. This is a funny yet true narration on what this model is all about!

With virtually every youngster* in India getting into IT these days, India has quite a lot of Information Technologists. An intelligent business man taps these resources and builds an IT organization usually ending with the phrase - 'Consultancy Services' or 'Technology Solutions'. The business man realizes that doing projects for 'Shamuga pandian steel rolling mill' or 'Bhuvaneshwari gas agency' is not going to be so profitable and the exchange rate is where the trick is. If an average employee in US gets 40$ per hour for a job, the 'IT giant' (by now the company calls itself by a lot of names and the most famous of the lot is this one) quotes 25$ per hour for the same job. The US company prepares a farewell speech for its current employee that states "Bill is an excellent resource and has been a pillar to our business from the day we started...." and offers the job to the IT giant. To the IT giant the 25$ quote is a profitable business because the company gets 25 * 40 (the exchange rate for a USD in INR rounded off to the nearest tangible number) = 1000 INR (hope my math is right :D) per hour for an employee for a project. An average software professional gets around 35K INR per month and that means for 160 hours of work (at least that is the official number) he gets paid for 35 hours and guess where the rest of the money goes! Big deal...

However there is one problem. To a US company that doesn't know about this 'IT giant' it is hard to digest and believe the fact that everything could be done thousands of mile apart without a single soul in front of them. But if all the workforce is shifted to the client location, then the giant would no longer be in business (remember the *40 factor). That is when the IT giant comes up with the most innovative idea - "Onsite Offshore model". According to that model, a scape goat will be identified to sit in the client location (a.k.a. onsite) and smile at the client when asked to and give a serious look in meetings when the situation demands. Ideally this scape goat is supposed to understand the client requirements narrated in funky English, guide the offshore team and get the work done in stringent schedules. In return of his favor, he'll be paid in USD and due to the fabulous 40 factor, there is an omnipresent urge among the Indian IT professionals (?!) to become scape goats. Ironically, the team that is provided to the scape goat will largely be composed of freshers and trainees who haven't seen any real time code. This means that he has an offshore team to talk to but not a team where he can get the work from. At times the luck is reversed and the offshore team sits day and night at the office to deliver the project on time while the onsite representative just gives in a call to follow up on the status of the tasks allocated.

Apart from these folks, there is a third category - managers. Process Manager, Delivery Manager, Account Manager, Assistant Manager, Manager, Client partner, you name it. The purpose of these managers is to make sure everything is 'up and running', get more business for the company and try to cut down the expenses as much as possible. Quite often the third factor leads in scape goats being used as multi-purpose resources.

If you are an American and you see a lot of Indian population in your locality, don't be mad that the US Government has become so liberal in allowing immigrants. It's just that the onsite-offshore model is working out to benefit an American business and an Indian family; and in most cases the Indians you see are going to get back to India sooner or later.

* - Note to statistics experts - this is a hyperbole and not meant to reflect exact numbers.

I'm Kannan... Single... 30 yrs old!

Since I got into story telling mode in the previous post, I thought I could adopt the same for this post too considering the correlation it has to the current status of the Indian society.

Kannan is not so different from the other Indian youngsters. He is of average height, not so dark-not so fair complexion, loves cricket, spends a lot of time on Orkut and Gmail and he has a decent if not handsome appearance. However, there is one major difference. He is not into IT as most others are. He is a senior field engineer in a reputed firm at Ambatthur that manufactures spares for trucks and heavy vehicles. Until the time Kannan's parents came up with the idea of getting him married (In India, the parents decide bride/groom and incidentally the system works better than many others across the world), Kannan was a happy go lucky person who had a comfortable living with his 15K salary and lived life - king size. But then every happy story has a twist!

The first time he heard his dad conversing with the girl's parents was the first time he felt inferior in his life. The plan was that Kannan's parents would talk to the girl's parents just as a formality and then Kannan would meet the girl and talk to her. Courtesy - a popular matrimonial site that hosted Kannan's personality in his own words. Kannan took 3 full days to come up with the profile and the first few lines of the profile read "I'm Kannan, Single, 25 yrs old Mechanical Engineer working in a reputed firm. I'm a happy go lucky person with good sense of humor and I'm looking for a girl who is understanding, homely and cute".

When the profile had a response, Kannan was ecstatic and it was a usually unusual day where every guy has a kind of excitement about getting married and a virtual ball kept rolling in Kannan's stomach. His brain was thinking of ways he could start the conversation with the girl, the questions he could ask her and the topics that would be romantic while his hands were busy brushing his hair and his eyes scanning his mirror reflection a thousand times to ensure he's presentable. The hour finally came and Kannan's dad called up the girl's home.

Dad: Hello! May I talk to Mr. Karthikeyan please.
...
Dad: Hello sir! This is Rangarajan - Kannan's father. How are you doing sir?
...
Dad: I'm doing great by God's grace. So everything as per plan? Are we meeting at Kabhaleeshwarar temple at 10: 30?
...
Dad: But sir... You could've at least told us before!
...
Dad: Hmm...
...
Dad: That's ok sir! That's God's will. What else could we say... Thank You!

Kannan was confused by the conversation and suddenly all the excitement he had since morning was wading off. "What happened dad" he asked his father...

His father remained silent for a couple of moments and said "The bride's family doesn't want to proceed any further with this marriage proposal. They have a better profile - a software engineer settled in US, earning 200K per month in Indian value. Don't worry Kanna. You'll get a better girl".

Those words keep echoing in his ears all these years, every echo reducing the trust in those words and every rejection reducing the confidence in him. "After all 15K?, Mechaaanical Engineer?, Hasn't even been to US?, Was he a college drop out?" - different versions of the same story from different girls. Kannan is still unmarried, thinking about learning SAP and applying for a US H1 visa. The profile in his matrimonial site currently reads - "I'm Kannan, Single, 30 yrs old Mechanical Engineer working in a reputed firm... "

Performance-driven appraisal

If you are not a 'yet another nerd' working for a Software services company, you might not have heard the phrase 'Performance-driven' appraisal quite often! The definition of appraisal says "appraisal [n] - the classification of someone or something with respect to its worth". In this context, we are talking about a poor (based on his state and not his/her wallet) software engineer who is promised about being classified into 'buckets' purely based on his/her performance. The best 'bucket' gets you more money and a better chance to get promoted (at least as per the book) and vice versa. It's such an interesting concept in itself and when you are not the person in question, it's real fun to watch the whole thing. I thought of adopting a story-telling mode for this post to make it all the more lively...

Ramu (that's the default name in all Indian stories isn't it) is a brilliant environmental engineer who can talk fluently in English (importantly say his name correctly) and has a decent score in his exams (I said brilliant and this should be implicit). His college being one of the top 200 in the state that has 210 colleges, a great software company, let's call it tnazingoc visits the campus for recruiting freshers. Out of the 300 who attend the aptitude tests, 299 are short-listed for the interview round and quite obviously Ramu was one of them. Tnazingoc decides to have a short and sweet interview round considering the number of students attending and the time factor. Ramu's interview is scheduled at 3:51 PM and by the time he gets into the room it's 5:30 PM. The interviewer has a stern look and gave all symptoms of putting forth the toughest question that one could imagine. Finally the conversation starts -

Interviewer: "What is your name"...
Ramu: "Ramu sir"
I: Good! Could you tell us about yourself Ramu?
R: I'm Ramu... Environmental Engineer from Annai Arulmigu Anandavally college of Engineering with a CGPA of 8.993. I'm the only son of my parents and my hobbies are reading, playing cricket and watching movies.
I: Great! Thanks Mr. Ramu. It was nice speaking to you! Please wait outside. We'll get back to you.

One phrase that jeopardizes any interview candidate is "We'll get back to you!" - nothing is committed, no answer given! Ramu waits outside the placement hall with half of his nails gone and finally the company representative shows up and announces the list of candidates selected.

"Based on the stringent evaluation of the candidates, we are pleased to announce that 295 candidates have been selected by Tnazingoc. The names are... Raghu B.E. Mech, Ramu B.E Env Engg, Seetha B.E Instrumentation, ...". Ramu feels ecstatic about his achievement not knowing what is waiting for him...

After a lead time and a so called training he gets into the actual stadium - a huge building with high tech infrastructure and 1000s of employees generating constant waves of sound through their keyboards. Ramu gets introduced to his team leader Bharath and his project manager Ashok. Being quite brilliant Ramu manages to write some good programs within a short span. Appreciations all around make him feel as if he is God. Then comes the appraisal season. A lot of co-workers staying late, some getting certifications in technologies, some working hard to manage their work and other's work; and Ramu being a first-timer didn't realize that they are getting ready for appraisal. Finally, Ramu's appraisal meeting was scheduled and he walks into a conference room with a glass table, costly chairs and vibrant interior decor. Ashok and Bharath spoiled the beauty of the room by their presence but the lead and the manager had to be there for his meeting. The conversation starts...

Ashok: Hi Ramu! Wazzup?
Ramu: Pretty much the usual stuff Ashok. Working on a data model for the new project.
Ashok: Good! We are greatly impressed by your performance. Bharath in particular gave a wonderful feedback about you. He thinks you are a stellar performer. (Ramu gives a broad smile good enough for a dentist to treat him. Bharath keeps nodding all along whether Ashok's statement needs an acknowledgment or not) It's our pleasure to give you the second bucket for all your contributions.
R: (Thinks WTF) But Ashok... why second bucket? Why not first?
A: That is where it gets tricky Ramu. We have so many other experienced folks in the team who desperately need some recognition. Usually we give the third bucket to new comers but in your case you deserved a lot better rating and that's why we gave you a second bucket.
R: :(
A: Don't worry Ramu. You will surely get the first bucket and a promotion next time.
R: :) Thanks Ashok.

A year passed like a jiffy and Ramu's profile is really great now. He's done a lot in the past year and he's sure about getting positive results. A different room with the same faces and the discussion starts...

Ashok: Here comes the man... Please sit down Ramu.
Ramu: Thanks Ashok.
A: You've done a great job Ramu. I could see you spin around the entire bay. Getting a team member like you is not easy. But you know what... From an experienced (?!) candidate like you we expect a lot more.
R: What more could I do Ashok? I completed all my work on time, helped others and never delayed my deliveries.
A: I know. That is why you are given the second bucket. To get the first bucket, you need to think out of the box. Do things at the organization level... Handle trainings, Conduct interviews, Interact with the Center of Excellence teams... I didn't see any of them.
R: But Ashok, I hardly had time for all that.
A: This is where your time management skills come into play. You need to prioritize your work and come up with the most optimal path.
R: Am I at least getting a promotion this time?
A: I've nominated your name. Let's see. But I can't assure anything now. We are yet to get the complete list.
R: Thanks...

Should I even say that Ramu is still waiting for the first bucket and promotion?! :)

We offer 24 * 7 support to your applications...

One common clause in the business maintenance and development proposals given by software companies especially on the services front is "We offer 24 * 7 support to your applications". This means that the poor guy who is 'taking care' of the application would be available anytime of the day/night to address problems with the application.

The person who comes to the client location (75% US, 24.23% UK, 0.77% other countries :)) would be told that it is a loooooooooooooong term assignment and he/she comes with the dream of spending a dream vacation at Hawaii or the Alps on one side and carrying a huge sack of US $ or Euros when coming back to India, on the other. But one aspect missed by everyone is the lifestyle out there at the client location.

People might call you at 3 AM in the morning and leave you awake for 3 hours just because some dumb scheduling support person ran the wrong job at the wrong time. The next day (or rather later the same day) your client manager would schedule a meeting at 9 AM to make sure you are in the office by that time to explain what happened early in the morning. On long weekends when clients take a day off before and after the weekend (additionally) to make it a week's vacation, our hero would be sitting all alone in the office to make sure everything is 'up and running'. If he/she manages to sneak a vacation to some good place, a call would immediately follow! Isn't it romantic to sit in a cabin in Smokey mountains and ensure that your application recovered from a failure caused by an untimely shutdown of the database? Not to mention the hours spent to correct the issues created by bugs in the applications that provide data to your application! Everything ran fine but phew on the wrong data!

If this is one portion of it, there is another portion that is shared by all folks who stay out of the country - right from food until your housekeeping you got none to help you out and you need to be your own boss and servant. Thanks to the hundreds of desis out there in the US, right from a temple till cumin seeds you could get almost everything you need in your locality. But the irony is that people hardly get the mood, the material and the time simultaneously to prepare something good and hence most of the time the Indian restaurants and oat meals come to the rescue!

In this largely artificial and happiness free life, the only or rather the couple of advantages are a comparatively better pay and proud parents in India and since both of these are quite important factors, it wouldn't be uncommon to see more and more Indians volunteering to become scape goats!

India and the G8

India becoming a superpower has been a topic in History/Civics books ever since I did my schooling. Even now, the topic stays with the time frame extended to current year + 10 by the latest reprint!

Will India ever become a superpower? What does it really take to become a superpower? Is India progressing towards it at the least? Does the improvement in the rupee value indicate that we are on the right track? A thousand questions could easily be asked on this topic.

As with any concept there are two sides to this coin and two sections of people - one for each side. People who say 'Yes, we are progressing' quote that India has the largest young population in the world and even nameless countries in the world outsource their HR and IT requirements to India. This according to them has revolutionized the economy, bringing up the stock market and shifting the focus of the world nations towards the sub-continent.

On the other hand, another set of people say that in India the rich get richer and poor get poorer which is not even close to progress. They say there are thousands of villages that lack even the basic infrastructure. When any remote village in US can offer a 7Mbps broad band internet connection, there are remote villages in India where you don't even have electricity. This according to them is not even termed 'developing' let alone 'developed'.

Let's weigh these statements on a balanced scale and perhaps try to spot where things go wrong if at all they do! Undoubtedly Indian economy has improved in the recent past - thanks to IT, ITIS, BPO and Call Centers. The value for Indian rupee has been improving constantly jeopardizing the Indians living in US, making them think if they should get back to India and settle down on a high profile job there! Quite obviously this means progress and we are performing better in the high-tech industry these days.

Viewed from the other perspective, according to surveys (God knows the year these surveys were taken! After all reservation policies for 2007 have been based on the 1950s Census) a major portion of India's population is rural or semi-rural. Have they really got any benefits? People might claim that a farmer's son from a remote village like Rasakkapalayam (all names are imaginary... any reference to existing places is purely coincidental :D) is now dancing in the costliest dance bar in NYC because of these improvements! But who will take care of the farm after the old farmer's time is done? Is it really wise to convert that fertile land to an apartment that dumps 1000s of middle class Indians?

Improvements in Technology is mandatory and it is the stepping stone for an improved India. But improving on the technical front alone is not the real improvement. So many basic problems are still out there waiting to be addressed and the lucrative salaries offered by high-tech jobs are driving youngsters into a single channel like a flock of sheep, draining out the creamy layer that would've contributed to the improvement of other areas. If Bachelors, Masters and Doctorates in diversified branches lead to the same destination, then what is the purpose of having so many branches? The quote by Oscar Wild - "Who wants a cynic who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing" (Ok... Courtesy TZP) couldn't fit any better than in this case. When the ultimate destination is joining some XYZ Software Solutions and earning more money than the rest, what value could a specialization on psychology, sociology, Bio-medical engineering, mechanical engineering provide? Absolutely nothing!

So what is the real solution then? Where lies the problem? Is it IT companies? Is it the population? Is is the greed in everyone to make more money? No! There is just one word that retards the growth of India - Politics. Sure enough it deserves a new post and I refrain from getting into the specifics here. But rest assured, India is still 'developing' and there is a long way to go before we call ourselves a real 'Super Power'!

IT and the socIT

One of the hottest topic in India these days (perhaps next to super star's next movie) is Information Technology (IT) and the impact it has created in the Indian society.

Retired bank employees, school teachers, insurance agents and clerks who worked half their life to get a Bajaj Chetak scooter and the rest half of their life to maintain it; self-drive their Hyundais and Fords today to walk in the shores of marina or Besant Nagar at dawn or dusk discussing about Calories, the distance between Seattle and Chicago and exchange rates.

On the other hand, there are middle class, lower middle class and poor people who claim that IT has taken away the happiness from their lives and increased their cost of living by 'n' folds. Movies like Tamizh M.A a.k.a Kattradhu Tamizh (thanks to the government's taxation policy!) protest against the whole trend claiming that the growth reported by IT is more like a tumor than a development. Some others even claim that folks in IT get overpaid for nothing.

So what's really happening? Is IT a boon or a bane?

If I'm asked to be point blank, IT is definitely a boon to the Indian economy. So am I rejecting the fact that folks who mastered sociology, physiology, history, geography and English should suffer? Absolutely not! First of all, with all due respect, I hate the concept that the movie Tamizh M.A backs! If someone earns more than what I do, they should suffer and I'd protest against them and their growth calling it as Capitalist mentality. This concept (hint: code red :)) which has somehow identified itself to be a principle is actually destroying the society.

Salaries and earnings have always been driven by two basic principles - 1. how much does the employer make 2. does the work really need you or any Tom, Dick or Harry can replace you... IT companies make billions and billions of US dollars every year and IT does require specialized skill set to get the job done. So naturally they will be paid higher than an English, physiology or a sociology graduate. Second point - is IT the only sector where wages have raised? A maid who cleans dishes and brooms the floor would've got 200 or 300 rupees before 10 years. Today, the to get the same job done, one needs to pay at least 1000 even in the suburbs! If IT is proclaimed to be the only reason for the drift in economy and inflation rate, then this credit automatically has to go to IT. Another point worth mentioning here is that IT is not just employing Software Engineers. Security agents, real estate brokers, land owners, house owners, transportation agencies, house-keeping staff, banks, courier agencies, mobile phone companies, gift shop owners and a flurry of non-IT people and professions are also benefited by IT. In short, IT increases the buyer's potential and makes money flow just like it's portrayed in a high school English lesson where a lunatic comes into a town and revolutionizes the economy of the place by ordering a Rolls Royce!

In short millions and millions survive on this industry and so many middle class hopes have come true in the form of basic facilities, own houses, cars, bank balance, credit cards, jewels and liquid cash. Let's be happy and feel proud about the growth of fellow Indians instead of frowning at it. Everything else would fall in place on its own!