Hey Ram

I’m not as religious as my parents. But I will consider sacrilege any suggestion that the characters in Ramayan dont exist; Even if it comes to support a legitimate cause, a simple dredging activity to build India’s own Suez Canal.

I’m all for sethusamudram, and even if it doesn’t bring the economic benefits similar to panama or suez, to protest the project on religious basis doesn’t appeal to reason; Surely Ram, the noble and benevolent god will approve the actions of us mortals. As for as cost benefits go, no large project is without some costs.

But when someone suggests the mythical bridge is not man made but a natural formation in the Indian ocean because the builder Ram doesn’t exist, I can only think with my heart. I can only think of the fatwas that gets issued for prophet cartoons, the fatwas for Salman Rushdie and Taslima and countless others who have dared to suggest far less; Hindus are as spineless to blasphemy as India to terrorism. I’m frankly surprised by how strong my emotions were, for am I not the educated elite? Perhaps this is why a party like BJP gets voted in spite of the countless loons in its ranks. You only need a pea-brained congress to create a BJP.

The sad part is the project will get delayed for all the wrong reasons once again. In times like these, I wonder if democracy and freedom of expression is a hindrance. Look at what the Chinese are doing to the sacred Mekong. They may end up damaging the habitat, but no one can accuse them of one thing – inaction.

Life @ ICICI bank

That’s where I got an offer at campus. Campus life officially ended at 17^th of March with a glitzy convocation. I had done well academically after an ordinary first year and like everyone else in my batch, felt on top of the world.

After a period of rest and ennui, I joined the bank officially on 22^nd May. I had 3 week training at IFMR, Chennai and actually joined dept in mid June.

Okay, enough of timelines, as if I’ve undertaken a world quest. I’d asked for a risk profile, and they had assigned me in credit risk. At IFMR, people from different departments gave an overview of their depts. Following an unflattering portrayal of credit risk group by a person working there, I developed cold feet. Upon returning, I discussed with my group head (a nice gentleman) in my first meeting and got my profile changed to market risk.

Seat is a problem in every organization. The next batch of trainees’ had gone to IFMR, so I thought I’ll occupy one of their seats temporarily till the secretary scavenges me one somewhere. After 3 weeks, no seat. Fine. The problem was there was no seat literally. In the mornings, I used to go to the corporate library and exhaust all the papers and magazines and then go for lunch. After lunch, I’ll go to my boss’ cabin for 2 reasons. One, otherwise he would forget I exist. Two, bug him for a seat. Then, I tried to read all the big documents that I’m supposed to read and when I got bored, I frequented Learning matrix (It’s a place to learn new modules related to banking Eg. Anti-money laundering).

You can’t have an MBA drawing hefty pay (according to them) and not give him no work right? So, in the 4^th week, my boss started giving me small work and said they aren’t tight deadlines. But that still needs a computer. Hey, you are talking to a professional, an organization man. No problem, I told my boss. There is a Bloomberg terminal (Have you seen one? It has a twin monitor and a colorful keyboard. Sells information like Reuters) I started working on it. When someone wanted information from it, I worked on their computers. Since I needed the half finished data, I used to mail it to myself (you can’t copy from computer- IT security) Like this I worked back and forth, forth and back…

One day, Bloomberg terminal crashed. No one left their seats to collect data so that’s it.

After 6 weeks of sustained pressure, I got a temporary space without any computer, telephone or drawers. Mission workstation. That’s on next episode.

Even IIM needn’t automatically guarantee success

Getting a good CGPA is pain you know. Attend classes (no proxies), take notes, make presentations, and class participation, study. Sacrifice sleep, frequent eat-out, parties, free-riding etc. Why shouldn’t it form part of your resume for final placements? After all, committee selection is done by seniors, the rookie HRs. Win contests, well, one elusive cherry for the majority. In the end, acads is one area where rewards are commensurate with efforts. Good CG reveals a lot of positive aspects about a person- commitment, desire to excel, hard work, consistency etc.

Does good CG guarantee jobs? I don’t know. It definitely is important for shortlists to good companies and decider for marginally better ones. Converting is your talent.

Disclosing to select companies doesn’t make sense. If 8+ CGs can tilt the balance in slot 0 companies, 7+ CGs tilt in slot 1, 6.5+ CGs in slot 2 and so on, ceteris paribus. How do you know when anything can become critical? Why should a bunch of cool-dudes stop loser-muggus from getting even a tiny edge? I’m not passing any judgments on low graders, for the moment, let’s talk evidence.

IIM doesn’t select its students by first-cum-first-serve basis, does it? In fact IIM-A, the goliath wants consistently great acads for final selection even if you clear one of the toughest competitive exams on earth. Personality and interpersonal skills can wait. Merit is the raw material.

It’s not as if people didn’t know the importance of CGPA. The fact that this will happen was told by Profs right at induction. It can be argued that a relative grading system ensures that someone will get 4 no matter what. But a person cannot screw up all courses if he works, he has only himself to blame otherwise.

If disclosing CG means multiple offers and possibility of entire batch not getting placed in record time, so be it. No one should assume that admission to any institution, even an IIM, guarantees success.

PS: I don’t have a great CG, only a disclose-able one.

Which is better, lot of attention or no attention?

Tata acquires Corus for a whopping price, so India has arrived! Indian media goes gaga, British papers cannot stop talking about BRICs and so on.

In the middle of madness, I wonder if we are missing a point. How do we know we have arrived? By generating attention? Till 1960s, we lived at the mercy of the Western donors for food. Aid used to generate a lot of media attention (We were proud we got aid!) But after Indo-Pak war in 1965, when Nixon administration stopped food aid, we were forced to modernize our agricultural systems and within a decade, went from being a food importer to exporter. Food aid no longer hogged attention.

As we grew, we cut down all aid which came with caveats. When tsunami struck in 2004, we were an international donor country in spite of losing almost 100000 people and billions of dollars of wealth. When we turned down aid from the west, it generated a lot of media attention. Now barely anyone thinks about foreign aid for rescue.

When Vajpayee signed an epic Nuclear cooperation agreement with Bush (precursor to the current Nuclear deal), some media critics said he is turning India a junior partner to US. We were junior beggars when we were getting aid. Now junior partner seems like a stigma -Signs of change.

A couple of years back, I used to see a M&A deals with deal size of less than a $100 million being splashed in headlines of all national dailies. There was only one Indian MNC, the Aditya Birla Group. Now, anything less $500 mn is relegated to middle pages. Amtek Auto, a nobody till an year back, has presence in a dozen countries today.

Ah, Tata Corus! But in a few years, those kinds of deals would be so frequent no one would care. That’s the time would we have truly arrived. That time beckons.

A little sunshine?

Last couple of weeks has been great. I won a “National” level contest (at least on paper… in final stage all teams were from my institute only because teams from other institutes couldn’t make it), got a shortlist for one more, my grades shot up last time, Gravitas 2007 is a blockbuster success with articles from President of India and top industry honchos, got (rather stole :)) airtime in Zee Business about Budget 2007. At this rate, I’m beginning to feel that the paper I sent to World business dialogue at Cologne, Germany on Changing Societies might get selected (Please god, STRETCH MY LUCK!!!!) I’m so exited I can’t feel the ground. A little sunshine in otherwise mundane life?

Service manufacturing or Manufacturing services?

Ford is remembered for his production genius. But he was actually a marketing genius. He figured out that if he can make Model T cheap, he can sell millions of cars to American public and make a lot of money. His production is the result of his marketing acumen, not the other way round. Thus born the assembly line that Charley Chaplin makes fun of, in the movie of same name.

Overtime, the production system is being perfected to such an extent that any job can be broken into separate parts and studied, what Taylor did in scientific management. This led to phenomenal productivity although it assumed worker is also a machine (alternative was Hawthorne studies which said happy worker is productive worker)

But services were a different ball game. How can you increase the productivity of a knowledge worker? But that is exactly what the BPO companies are doing. They have deskilled every aspect of the work, creating standards for tasks like answering the customer call to creating research reports, Financial statements etc. in the process driving down costs for big companies. The companies like Asian paints have the practice of checking the workers’ lunch boxes before they leave after work for expensive parts, while BPO companies have eliminated paper, banned mobiles during work and scan employee mails and implemented a thousand other policing strategies to protect equally expensive data.

Not just BPO, even SAP, which was once considered the domain of consultants have been deskilled to such an extent that office boys do the entry now. Standards have been created for every application, be it mining data or preparing chef’s special soup. Due to this, services are slowly acquiring the flavor of assembly line manufacturing, creating a similar productivity revolution.

If service is becoming manufacturing, what is manufacturing becoming? In olden days, modern factories (GM tried unsuccessfully to build an automated factory at a whopping $50 billion) were a sign of triumph. Not anymore. The less the company produces the better. GM is now an assembly line with all functions from design to manufacturing of complex parts being outsourced to Chindia. What is it left with? After sales service, of course. The companies are discovering that a lot of money can be made with maintenance and service contracts.

So, with the line becoming thin, what is the end? Infosys BPO CEO reckons people especially in developed countries who had been long doing what was once complex jobs may suddenly find jobless unless they learn newer things, or work in India!

Have you tried Yahoo! Answers yet?

It is a wikipedia type service only that people answer your questions, not just share knowledge on general topics. I had a very specific question about Art, and was fed up googling and thought why not give it a try. An Art consultant with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree answered the question in less than two hours!! (wikipedia.org/wiki/Bachelor_of_Fine_Arts)

With Google spreading its wings everywhere and gobbling every bright idea that emanates anywhere (youtube being the latest), I thought it’s only a matter of time for Yahoo! (I’m a fan of yahoo. I think the new yahoo beta is an ultimate mail interface) to get gobbled up. But no, time and again they have proved they can come up with a few aces and beat Google at its own innovation game (Google answers is a failure). Way to go!

What the year taught me

The trick to answering that question is knowing what you are and what you were, which I’m not sure I do. A close friend may notice something.

We had an exercise in one of our courses in which we were put into a group and ask each other to tell what the person’s first impressions were about the other. What do I come across as first up? An intellectual! What doesn’t make me laugh is an impression that I’m sarcastic. Well, may be, but never intended to bite anyone.

I’m not proactive. I always believed in sanctity of the system, whatever that means, and followed it. I thought may be that will change. Not a bit.

I thought may be my stupid jokes will be sobered by the purported superior education. It didn’t because there is no need to, as long as it tickles one funny bone, one beneath my skin.

One thing I learn t is that the results i get depends on my mood which tends to swing from wild euphoria to gloom. I’m sober as write this line though I don’t know why. I also don’t know why I become cold in the presence of my gregarious sister though I cannot stop talking about her to everyone I know. I don’t know how I managed to get over my lovable granny’s death so quickly and say ‘her time had come’ to my astounded relatives when I was only 9.

I can’t be that bad, can I? The year should’ve taught me something. May be I do things I can, complaining less frequently. May be that’s why I walk around in circles less, when the deadlines approach. And I speak out more than I ever did. Because its one of the few things I’m good at.

Happy New Year.

Hail Gravitas!

Gravitas

Pronunciation: 'gra-v&-"täs, -"tas

• high seriousness (as in a person's bearing or in the treatment of a subject)
• Name of our institute publication.

Our communication professor is the Editor with 6 people on board. (3 seniors and 3 first years). Last year was its inception. They had dabbled with some magazine sometime back and dropped it later. Anyway, last year it was close to institute fest when we came up with the idea (my seniors to be precise) and we discussed endlessly as to what the end product will look like and who will find it useful. After dismissing journal like stuff (our institute has one called Metamorphosis, but no one cares to remember let alone read). Magazine is too juvenile to be taken seriously. So we zeroed in on the sweet spot, an Indian HBR.

Next was the name- we discussed Ergo (doesn’t it sound like a burp?), Citius Altius Fortius (unreadable), Chrysilis (what’s this fixation with Greek names?) etceeeeettttteeeerraa..Gravitas (C’mon! Let’s move on to more important things)

Next was to decide who will write and who will read. If we want industry captains to read it, why not ask them to write? Great. Things started to move on pretty fast. We decided a theme and possible list of speakers who embody them ask them to write and bingo! Pops the magazine.

Well, it didn’t go quite that way, because the toughest part was the last one. Anyway, our revered editor pulled the first edition herself- did the convincing. We, on the other hand, did the donkey work- proof read, designed, published, distributed, and wrote a thank you note (Boy! Was she paranoid about that part?)

Second edition is slightly different- we still have a theme ‘Indian roots, global ambitions’, still zeroed on the speakers (industry captains, sportsmen, politicians, writers, economists), the only little part we are supposed to do is convincing. You call the secretary, talk talk talk and we get the article, right? WRONG! I did try it last year with no success. Tried 6, converted none. Somehow everybody had gone to China. (China is definitely a threat)

This time I tried the same people. Rang the secretary and said hello Mr. Das. How do you know my name? I talked to you last year also, remember? Well, the other end is sympathetic this time. Yesterday’s rejects are today’s converts. Today’s, tomorrow’s converts and so on.

Lesson 2- Mr. Secretary? Yes saar (sir). Tamizha? Amam. How did you know? Never mind. Mother tongue worked!!!

We have only 2 articles till date (and a few commitments) and one and a half months to go. I’m still apprehensive. C’mon buggers! Let’s do exactly that.

Happy b'day America

US recently had its 300 millionth baby, the last 100 million was also its fastest. While European union, Japan, Russia and to some extent China are on a suicidal spree (shrinking population in the next few decades), US population is expected to cross 400 million by as early as 2043 (Economist). This will help avert problems that will plague others (social security, insufficient workforce, culture clashes with immigrants etc.) and fortunately/unfortunately, US dominance may not wane anytime soon.

I’m gratified

I just had a casual conversation with a batch mate, a relative stranger. The person would love to work with me because I’m a workhorse (word of mouth). Boy, I felt wonderful.

Is extravert-introvert siblings a myth?

We read stories which portray diametrically opposite siblings. Is it a cliché which was invented to base a juicy story? Studies have confirmed that this is the norm.

The phenomenon is called sibling de-identification, popularized by American psychologist Feinberg, says this occurs predominantly in siblings of same sex, have limited age differences and those who are immediate ones (the first and third sibling tend to be similar than first and second, say). The second one tries to pursue different courses, enjoys different genre of movies, have different hobbies, which is acceptable. But what is surprising is that they have a very different personality traits even though brought in exactly the same environment- the second one is reserved if the first is enterprising, short tempered if first is warm, takes quick decisions if first is contemplative etc. Research shows the second girl of the family tends to be tomboyish and lacks feminine interests like dance, reading romantic novels etc.

Why does this happen? Siblings compete for parents’ share of attention and love all the time, which leads to friction (prominent cause of sibling rivalry). Over time, they (mainly the second one) try to differentiate themselves from the each other. (In marketing terms, they tend to carve out and operate in separate niches so that they don’t have to compete for the customer (in this case the parents) directly.) So, by having different personality, they unconsciously establish they are unique in their parents’ eyes.

I have a sister, 3 years older. She is the smarter one who pursued a lot of things- carnatic music, veena, bharatnatyam in addition to being a CA/ ICWA/ ACCA and god-knows-what-else. My relatives used to praise her in my presence and it always made me squirm. May be I am little reserved and short tempered (Ah, I hate to admit it!!!!!) and used to pick fights with her for no reason. It always gave me perverse pleasure. Now I feel I wasn't wrong. I was just a victim of Sibling De-identification. Hahaha.

Do you have any experience like that?

Why can’t world be a melting pot?

Just the other day, a sikh boy was beaten up and his long hair was cut off by a bunch of Scottish thugs. Punjabis in America are still mistaken as Arabs and looked upon suspiciously. Lower class Dalit women are paraded naked by upper class villagers at the slightest excuse in some Indian villages. Some Indian states previously imposed legislations stating only natives will get employment there. Some of my friends routinely taunt me that south Indians (like me) are not patriotic enough, because most of the famous freedom fighters (event dated 6 decades) are from north. When I grew up I used to hear this term ‘melting pot’ and wondered what's cooking, sorry for the pun. Thankfully people have long forgotten the term.

Why don’t cultures reconcile, let alone blend, even after decades? May be it is because of basic human psyche to be comfortable only with what looks like us, what we recognize. We trust things that we know and vice versa. Familiarity does not breed contempt; on the contrary, it inspires trust. To trust them/those is to gratify ourselves, in some way.

That is why advertising works. We hesitate to buy anything not advertised even if it’s cheaper (or especially if it’s cheaper- what will my friends think of me if they see this toothpaste?). It is another matter we never admit that we bought anything because of ads; At best we may admit that we bought something because other ads suck.

Now that we know that we can’t blend or possibly even reconcile fully, can we at least coexist peacefully? Fortunately, we have done it so successfully that we almost forgotten how significant it means. Because, the reason Pakistan lost its eastern part (now Bangladesh) was not because India fought for its independence, but because, the urdu speaking Pakistanis considered the Bengali speaking Bangladeshis culturally inferior and treated them as such. In India, Nehru sought to impose what he considered the superior language (hindi) on all states and had to drop the plan owing to stiff resistance. If he had succeeded, who knows what might have happened.

Folks! We are one!

Plagiarism claimed its first casualty. For those people who didn’t know the seriousness of the offense, Professor Rocky gave a shock. May be forcing the student council resign because its members were involved in this was not a grave punishment in hindsight (may be there is more in store), it sure is a start. Professor had a personal grudge which he doesn’t hide too well (institute party disturbs his daughter study for board exams-he requests student council to reduce decibel levels-council choose to ignore-he has a grudge) but plagiarism is not an offense that can be washed away by that. We cannot be a great institution by having brilliant students alone, a dose of high standards is definitely required. Result: Council resigns.

But what did perturb me was the fact that committees (Interest groups, clubs etc.) chose the occasion to settle their scores with the council. We have a system where committees are responsible to the council and council to none. You can’t just blame the council members as autocratic, the system breeds autocracy. The committees call a meeting and does a council-bashing (even if some of the grievances are genuine), under the guise of how to improve the system. We even have a moderator who writes down the wrongs of the council. Call it timing the meeting.

I’m not an ardent admirer of council; I will even say I’m indifferent. I came here to learn something in 2 years, not be part of politics. But hell, we elected the council, and we are responsible if it turns out like this. And these members are our own folks, who made a mistake (along with 2 dozen others) and have been humiliated by a professor who had a grudge (Professor didn’t disclose the names of 2 dozen other people), and we choose to embarrass them, to hit a nail in their coffin hours after that nasty public disclosure. Folks! Remove the veil of committees and councils; it’s never us vs. them. We are just a bunch of students who came here to be a part of a memorable batch.

May be its time to move on, to elect a new council but more importantly put a system in place for checks. Our nation has a vibrant democracy, why can’t our institute have one? Why don’t we have the runner up in the council election as an opposition member, to question the council about things like spends, activities, and rationale of their decisions and make them public (organized bashing!)? Why not have disclosures after 6 months about these things along the lines of Parliamentary budget session? If its there in the constitution, its time to follow it in letter and spirit.

Why the fuss?

I’m one of the few who missed the final. So when everyone talked about head-butting (I had graphic thoughts in my mind!), I looked it up in wikipedia. Do you know what example they quoted? I don’t know if the world is flat, but it sure is fast!

What he did cannot be condoned but sportspersons involving in verbal abuse or clashes is not uncommon. Maradona is known for his mercurial character and violent acts on field. Australians are so notorious for sledging in the game of cricket that they developed it like an art. Because of the occasion, the press employs lip readers to find out what provoked the great man. It’s called public interest reporting.

Too bad the story has put a shadow on the glorious run the Italians had throughout the world cup. Normally notorious for underhanded tactics to win penalties, Italians played with compact defense and great goalkeeping. Let’s cheer them for the entertainment and salute the man who treated us with his ball skills.

What do Nostradamus and Akbar have in common?

Akbar is our strategy professor, not the mughal emperor. Do you know how strategy cases work? We study a case; discuss it in the class while he acts a facilitator and then discloses what actually happened later. Tell you what; what happened later will be exactly what we had predicted. Oh boy, are we budding Nostradamuses!

Just the other day, Spanish reporters quoted a Nostradamus prediction that Spain will win the world cup. Alas, they were kicked out of the tournament (This is my best pun yet!!!!) the same day by zidane and his men. So Spaniards brought a heapful of embarrassment not only for themselves but for the otherwise successful prophet as well.

So what’s the connection? The reason why we get our predictions right and Nostradamus his is because we know the outcome. Nostradamus cannot predict things which haven’t happened already. Ably led by Akbar, we would always zero in on the right alternative although other two looks equally good on case-sheet.

That brings me to the question. How did Nostradamus predict a lot of things that did happen already? I could think of only one answer. He simply wrote too much. And more importantly, he was cryptic. So it’s easier to retroactively re-engineer his prophecies. (Beat that for jargon!)

May be I’m a pessimist. May be this is the best way of teaching. Or, perhaps we should discuss a case whose outcome is not known presently and see what happens after a few months. Would that be more interesting?

Who cares about bacteria anyway?

Just the other day, BBC showed an expose of the counterfeit drugs in India and its operations. India is the world’s fourth largest pharmaceutical industry and the leads the counterfeit market. The footage shows interviews by two such manufacturers on how they work, bribe and network. (Tehelka could use a better video for secret filming. The BBC footage would’ve passed off as a normal interview but for the status message at the bottom).

One manufacturer even shows his unit and 40 qualified technicians skillfully preparing the potions. They are as good as the best in the industry, he avers(Which industry?). Other manufacturer, a woman, says she can prepare any combination and deliver it anywhere- Professional service guaranteed!

It’s unfortunate and disheartening that (at the risk of sounding immodest) a supposedly well informed urban educated ‘elite’ like myself have little clue of how big a problem it really is. (What does an elite do anyway other than blog it and discuss it endlessly?) Tuberculosis kills more Indians every year than any other infectious disease known. Why? The counterfeit drug with half to quarter the content of active ingredients in a genuine tablet (it translates to 200-400% increase in margins for manufacturers) increases the resistance of the pathogen stains for real drugs. In some cases, the active ingredients are substituted with paracetamol for cost cutting (aren’t we good at this?) One cannot but feel outraged that the woman says all this with such impunity.

The law awards death sentence for counterfeit manufacturers, but not one manufacturer has been caught so far. Perhaps it’s because of the difficulty to treat them at par with mass murderers (which they are), the system is happy to accept the bribes and leave them off the hook.

One would imagine exposes and the TRP it brings would make it a commercially viable option, if not a media’s responsibility to the society’s well being. But it’s bewildering that exposes are practically absent. Indian media gives more airtime to AIIMs and IITs strike against reservation or Finance Minister’s rhetoric to sooth the market (Is there any other country whose FM worries about stock market more than wasteful spending on education?). Which suits us fine- bright young students hitting the streets against the government looks better on TV than some unknown manufacturers increasing the resistance of pathogens and responsible for the deaths of poor sick patients in some corner of the country.

Who cares about bacteria anyway?

Hail reservation!

Human resource and development ministry is one every national party secretly wishes to abolish. Murli Manohar Joshi tried to write history books and reduce IIM fees to curb its autonomy. Arjun Singh's recent move to get 50% reservations for minorities in prestigious institutes like IITs and IIMs and medical colleges faces upper caste backlash. Surely HRD ministers have a knack of putting Governments in a fix only a few ministries can match.

So what if 50% seats are reserved for minorities? IT firms aren't recruting from IITs but hordes of second and third tier colleges and the industry is doing fine. IIMs total strength is 1400 but India inc is not complaining. There might be concerns about quality, but in the bigger scheme of things, the impact is marginal.

Everytime, reservations issues crop up, the standard excuses crop as well- The system discriminates a poor brahmin to an elite dalit bureaucrat, it affects quality, reservations have been in place for too long with little results and lastly, give them opportunities in education, not seats or jobs. Lets see it one by one.

First one- affirmative action is intended to target those segments of population which has been deprived of opportunities for long so that social imbalances are corrected. The issue needs to be dealt with independently of reservation on basis of economic imbalances.

The system doesn't place minorities in IITs. It only relaxes criteria for them- its like having a shorter boundary for a OBC cricket player- he still has to get the runs himself.That is why inspite of reservations, institutes find it difficult to fill them with actual minority candidates.

There is no reason to think reservations must've delivered after 6 decades- see the endless potholes, frequent powercuts, traffic jams. Don't be too hard on the poor system;it never works.

As far as giving them opportunities than reserve jobs, the former is taken care by the latter. Its very difficult to correlate the rupees spent on opportunities and the results. If a way is found, its the best way to go about it.

Hail affirmative action! Thank god minister's move is after I got into IIM.

Musings from munirka

We have a serious problem, my guide tells me, we find it difficult to sell the resin during lean months. I’ll reserve my strong emotions for worse disasters. I nod my head gravely anyway.

The summers project started a month back, with an orientation session. A whole session went off with the company history. One Lala Shriram who founded DCM, gave birth to three Shrirams who in turn gave birth to well, lot of shrirams. They fought among each other and gave birth to even more shriram companies and here we are, he showed one corner with a laser pointer. Thank god for flowcharts, it might well have turned out a disorientation session. I already had first three pages of my report ready.

Tell you what, there is a saying in tamil – oru paanai sotrukku oru soru padham. (How do you know whether the rice is cooked? Sample one grain and see.) It couldn’t be truer with my survey. I could’ve written the whole report after meeting one consumer. They are all the same. The good thing is I chose my time to work and when to go to office.

I frequent my relatives place here during weekends to eat south Indian food and well, keep in touch in the process. Wherever I go, I’m asked to advise the kids- Jyotika, anna is brilliant and hardworking (I know) so ask for his advise. The kid comes to me and looks at me like I’m some…whatever. Where do you stand in class, kid? Last time, I missed the first rank, she avers. Hmmm, how can you miss first rank? I shout at her. What comes around goes around. Hahahahaha. Thankfully, she didn’t ask the same question.

No one is perfect

You know orkut, right? Communities are a popular feature in orkut. From 1984 borns to I-love-to-sleep (!), there are thousands of communities spawning everyday.

So it’s only natural that there are a few hate communities. I’ve been getting mails saying such and such community (India sucks, I hate India etc.) exists and please report as bogus. It’s a way to show patriotism. Some people even discuss it hotly.

Great. If this is a fight, its worth shying away from. One, It’s very easy to start a hate community (one person is enough) but difficult to stop one (50 votes as bogus required to take community off). And there are I-hate-Pakistan communities too, so we don’t hold a moral high ground.

I don’t mind reporting them as bogus, but I wanted to know what they have in their forums. After all, sustaining a hate community is a tough job, isn’t it? How long can you rail a nation with same hatred unless you are a brainwashed terrorist? Some of the owners and members are well educated, so what do they discuss?

Surprisingly, I found a few valid objections. Some posts talks about female feticide, which is a matter of shame. India has an abysmal sex ratio of 931 females per 1000 males, and it is pathetic in modern states of Haryana and Punjab (860/1000). Southern states fare much better, particularly Kerala with a positive sex ratio of 1031 per 1000 males. Contrary to popular belief, Muslims are a more tolerant lot than Sikhs and Hindus when it comes to female feticide, which is shown by sex ratio classification by religion.

Other is about the high incidence of Aids which threatens to harm the productivity of a growing nation in the future if not checked. Low Female literacy finds a mention as well.

The language is reprehensible, but the objections are sound. It’s a totally different picture from what the Indian media gives- burgeoning economy, unstoppable stock market and more recently, a nuclear deal. Bad news never gets the same publicity.

So do I justify these groups? Hardly. Its time we recognize that we are a truly great nation not because of our culture or history; but because we have a working democracy and strong institutions for a place that is so diverse even in mindset. Once we do that, we get the courage to take criticisms, even hate writings in stride. We get the courage to seek harsh truths even in them.

That’s what a mature democracy does- reality check.