A brief hiatus

To all my readers,

Thank you very much for your time, patience, encouragement and comments.

I have been off the blogosphere a little bit due to personal reasons. I had been busy with relocation to a different place and have hardly had the time to relax, let alone put down my thoughts in a coherent manner.
However, my mind has been picking up signals and information all along and the thought and memory machines have been busy in the background.

I'll be back soon. Until then, take care and have fun!

Education, IT and Outsourcing - The US/India perspective

Listen up, there is a great post on TechCrunch about the great engineering shortage of 2012.

The article bemoans the fact that fewer students in the US now opt for careers in computer science at the college level but there are more drama majors. On the other hand, tech companies are still looking for great talent. Do read the comments for the article. They are extremely enlightening as to why some people simply got disillusioned with IT or that some others feel that outsourcing and the trend of preferring to hire young people have made the profession unattractive.

There is an interesting article in the Atlantic about the creative class in general and its rising presence in Asia (sorry, can't find the exact link). Here's a link to the author, Richard Florida's book on this topic. The creative class refers to jobs that require creativity, as you guessed right, education and skills. Jobs such as those in programming, journalism, research of any kind would all fall under this category. As I had posted earlier, these include professions of the head and those of the heart.

It is interesting to see how President Obama talks about out-educating and out-innovating everyone else in the world and about creating jobs here in America.  There is a discussion on one of my favorite authors and respected writer, Malcolm Gladwell's site about school performance and math scores in the US versus that of other Asian countries. This topic is discussed in his thought-provoking and brilliant, IMHO (in my humble opinion) book, "Outliers".

From my personal experience working both in India and the United States and having seen a fair bit of both countries, I have started to wonder if such a comparison is really an objective one.
I can't speak for other Asian countries but I can talk a little about India. Being a developing country that has traditionally valued education over mere wealth and power (wealth and power are of course important in any society but a well-educated, wealthy executive is likely to be more respected in India than a powerful, rich politician who is poorly educated), Indians typically invest in the education of their children.
One of the driving factors behind the craze towards IT and other intelligent white collar jobs is economics.
The standard of living differs widely between the classes as compared to the US. When I was much younger, someone once jokingly remarked that poverty in India meant living in a slum with no water or electricity or toilets or worse still, on the streets whereas in the US, 'poor' meant you could probably not afford a car.
Maybe the US was a more equitable society back then because looking at Occupy Wall Street and all its sister movements across the country along with people living off food stamps and out of their cars, not every American is now in that golden land where even the poor had access to basic necessities.

However, I still repeat - life in America for the average worker (someone who makes a little more than the minimum wage) is a lot better in at least some respects. One can still send the kids to a public school free of charge, buy groceries, have some cheap food, rent a decent apartment which usually comes equipped with a dishwasher, at least a common laundry room if not a washer/dryer in the unit, cooking range with oven and a refrigerator. One can buy used cheap furniture from craigslist or Goodwill and at least own an old used car. In short, basic necessities such as food, clothing, shelter, school education and even basic appliances that are commonly used in modern life are reasonably accessible.

Indians who are fresh off the boat in the United States typically covert dollars to rupees to cross check prices with that in India. This applies especially to certain items such as clothing, not items such as electronic ones. I have realized long ago that this is really not the way to compare unless you are on a short term visit and have no permanent income in the United States. Consider a television set, something brand new and cutting edge such as a Plasma or LED flat screen TV. What percentage of the average monthly income does this cost? The prices of electronic items have fallen so that even the average person can now buy a smaller flat screen LCD TV if not an LED TV at least during a massive Black Friday sale.
Ditto for laptops and touchscreen tablets such as Kindle or iPad.

On the other hand, let us consider the average Indian, someone who works in a factory or in an administrative job, not a hot shot IT professional or investment banker.

Renting in many Indian cities is very expensive so people prefer to buy property which means a portion of the monthly income has to be set aside to pay the loan. Most of the white collar jobs are concentrated in cities that are bursting at the seams with human population so even a single bedroom apartment in a far flung suburb of a megapolis such as Mumbai could cost you lakhs or even crores of rupees (1 lakh = 0.1 million and 1 crore = 0.1 billion, these are numeric units used commonly in South Asia).

One has to shell out all the money for appliances from one's own pocket as most apartments do not come built in with these. A car used to be a luxury even as late as the 1990s but with the introduction of cheaper cars such as the Tata Nano and more urban middle class professionals, car ownership has gone up significantly.
Public schools in India are far fewer than private schools and government schools have horrendous reputations (isn't that a paradox considering that India is supposed to be socialist and the US is supposed to be capitalist?). Gaining admission for a child to a 'good' school is getting expensive not to mention the need to save for college education. When I was a child studying in a private school that was government aided, I paid hardly any fees as the state government subsidized education for girls and also because schools that fulfilled certain government mandates could get additional funding. This may not be true for all Indian schools in all states.
On the other hand, a Bachelor's degree in the US costs an astronomical sum of money, especially if you send your son or daughter to a private University or an Ivy League school. Therefore, all is not hunky dory for a middle class family in the US either.

There are a couple of areas where the average Indian is better off than the average American.

1. Access to affordable everyday health care - Unlike the US, Indians generally do not need health insurance or even an appointment to see a primary care physician for a fever, eyesight or hearing problems or other common ailments. In fact, one can even see a specialist without insurance though they charge a lot. It is still not as bank-balance-draining as it is in the US. These are private practitioners not government clinics or state sponsored health care that I am talking about.
Owing to malpractice suits and the strain on the American health care system due to other factors, insurance has become a must-have and losing it when say, one is laid off from work, can be terrifying. Of course, one can buy insurance on one's own means but it is expensive in general.

2. Getting by without a car - Indian cities generally have good public transport as well as private providers such as auto rickshaws. One can walk to neighborhood stores and markets in many places making it a lot easier to get by without buying a car.

In general, the average standard of living in the United States is much better for someone in the middle/lower middle classes as compared to the same in India.
If you don't run a successful business, entry into the middle class and the ladder of prosperity are virtually impossible without education and landing a respectable, well-paying job.

After the formation and expansion of giants such as Microsoft and Apple and the need for computerization is every industry from banking to health care, information technology jobs have flourished and boomed in number.
The amount of code that needs to be written for large systems has been expanding and with it, the need for more programmers, quality assurance analysts and associated professionals such as those in management, marketing and sales has been burgeoning, too. Seeing what IT can bring into their lives, more and more youth have been opting for degrees in computer science, engineering and related fields and jumping onto the IT bandwagon.
IT offers jobs that give some scope for analytical ability and learning skills and thus the mental challenge along with pretty handsome salaries and a nice, modern office environment.
IT also gives professionals the chance to travel and live abroad, get acquainted with other cultures and enjoy a far better standard of living than in India. Even in India, top IT guys and gals have higher standards of living than probably the poor in the West.

However, this also means that many who get into programming or testing software do not do it because it is their passion. Bill Gates founding Microsoft, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak establishing Apple or Larry Page and Sergey Brin birthing Google happened not because these people wanted to get into well paying, secure jobs with all the accompanying perks but because of their natural interest in computers and the passion to impact the world with their innovative products.
Of course, we have Indian techies who are knowledgeable enough to co-author books and contribute to online forums and tutorials and some are instrumental to their project teams abroad but there still remains a sizable number for whom IT is not exactly their calling.
What was creative, fulfilling work for the likes of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak of Apple or Larry Page and Sergey Brin has taken on the nature of grunt work or drudgery for thousands involving fixing bugs, testing and re-testing and performing customer support tasks. Don't get me wrong, there are several who would excel at these tasks and even find them enjoyable but not everyone does and even an enthusiastic, intelligent worker may tire after years of repetitive work sitting alone in a cubicle for long hours.

Even in a country like India that values gurus and intellectuals to the highest degree, droves of young people started to march into IT and call centers while few became scientists or innovative entrepreneurs. The reasons for these are also because there are very few research centers other than those funded by the government and starting a business in India was not exactly a piece of cake even a decade ago.
Wonder what would happen if more Indians started to follow the current mantra of the developed world - Do what you love?
Would outsourcing be the same then? Maybe some other countries would step into India's shoes...
We do not know.

Conscious capitalism, Indian entrepreneurs and an awesome well-known Indian blogger

For a long time now,  I have been following the blog, Youthcurry, of a famous Indian blogger and author, Rashmi Bansal.

This is a blog about youth affairs, trends, education and careers. Opting out of the science-stream-engineering-medicine rat race of the Indian educational system at a young age, she majored in economics instead and went on to graduate from the prestigious Indian Institute of Management at Ahmedabad, also known as IIM A, one of India's top business schools.

Again, instead of merely continuing to climb the corporate ladder and drawing a hefty pay check, she went on to launch her own magazine - JAM (Just Another Magazine), a youth magazine.

Besides maintaining a popular blog, she has also authored three books on Indian entrepreneurs. Some of them are social entrepreneurs who have launched ventures that benefit the poor or further the cause of education.

Now, she has a new book coming out on Dharavi, nicknamed Asia's largest slum, located in Mumbai, India, titled - Poor Little Rich Slum. There is a great article on Dharavi in the National Geographic magazine here.

Ever watched the movie - Slumdog Millionaire? Well, coming from Mumbai, I know that slums are not just about poor, helpless people. Dharavi residents work and run businesses and their children go to school just like other people living in comfortable, legitimate apartments and houses.
The poor there aspire to a better life, too, and, in fact, Dharavi is known for some of its economic activities. For example, while I was still living in Mumbai, I knew that Dharavi had a famous road side leather goods market where one could buy leather jackets and the like before embarking on a trip to colder climes in America or Europe.

It would be interesting to read this book.

Entrepreneurship in India was lesser known in the past, confined to only the sons (and occasionally daughters) of families who were traditionally into business. There was even a stereotype that only Indians belonging to certain ethnic groups, such as the people who were natives of Gujarat (Gujaratis) or Rajasthan (Marwaris, one particular sub group from the state) had a knack for it.
Now, Indians are gradually waking up to the fact that one can do one's own thing and be successful and, better still, create jobs for other people and even make a difference in the lives of the less fortunate.

Meanwhile, I checked out the websites of some of her other books and it has been absolutely fascinating and inspiring. I lost myself in the stories of the people featured in her books and received a jolt of enthusiasm from it. Do check them out here:

Stay Hungry Stay Foolish

Connect the Dots

I Have a Dream

I popped in on a site called Goodreads to check out the page on her third book and was pleasantly surprised to see a lot of new books featured on the side bar, both fiction and non-fiction, penned by budding Indian authors.

This is another thing I admire about America and was struck by, during my initial years here. I was fascinated by the number of books that were being written by all sorts of people from journalists to professors and even politicians and how they promoted their books on various news channels such as Fox News, CNN, etc.
And, of course, American entrepreneurship. In my previous post, I had talked about the things that I was struck by when I came to the US. This is a key point.
In America, as a general observation, individuals do not wait for the government or some external entity to make changes in their lives. They start their own ventures, get organized as a community and take action.

When I lived in India, there was a columnist I followed very avidly in the Times of India, the economist, Swaminathan S Ankalesaria Aiyar. Having no educational background in economics except for a basic, introductory course in just one semester during my degree program, I learnt about terms such as 'trickle down effect', 'free market economy' and 'protectionism'.

India only started liberalizing its economy and allowing foreign direct investment in the early 1990s so we were a little late to the game. Foreign goods were looked upon as a luxury and were sometimes smuggled into the country. All this encouraged corruption.
Of course, there were big corporations that are British or perhaps a combination of British and Indian in origin that have been around since the days of British rule, for example, Britannia, Cadbury (now acquired by Kraft Foods) and Hindustan Lever (the Indian arm of Unilever).  The American giant, Johnson and Johnson, opened shop in India after independence in 1957. However, it was extremely difficult for newer companies from other countries to enter and directly do business in India.

Mr. Swaminathan Aiyar asked the question (paraphrasing is all mine) as to why should India only be afraid of being overrun by foreign corporations. Rather, why couldn't Indian companies compete and stand tall with them? This has certainly proved true.

Recently, Ford sold its Jaguar division to Tata, an Indian company. The Indian steel magnate, Lakshmi Mittal, founded a company that took over Arcelor and is now one of the world's largest steel companies, ArcelorMittal.

There was a time when there was a certain amount of paranoia against foreign companies. Today, American companies such as McDonald's, KFC, Pizza Hut, Domino's Pizza, Subway, Kellog's, General Motors, Ford, Coca Cola and Pepsi, to name a few, have a major presence in India along with Japanese, German, South Korean and British biggies such as Toyota, Volkswagen, Hyundai and Vodafone.

Although India was never a Soviet-style Communist economy, it wasn't the open, all out capitalist economy that the US is. Over the last two decades and more, India has been embracing more free-market economics and capitalism. Ordinary Indians, besides just being consumers, are waking up to the potential that increased competition and economic opportunity bring.

There is another side to capitalism besides the large corporation that kills all the Mom-and-Pop businesses and cares more about its bottom line than workers. Not all large corporations are devoid of responsibility and concern for their workers and other staff.

Capitalism, in its benevolent form, has the potential to transform society in a very positive way. I call this conscious capitalism, borrowed from the term 'conscious living' from many spiritual movements and one of my favorite personal development gurus and bloggers, Steve Pavlina. Companies think about their impact on the environment, their employees and society at large and act responsibly like a good citizen, even going beyond the bare minimum expectations at times.

Small businesses offering some unique products that are more environment friendly and affordable, can command a market share, too. One sees this a lot in the green products area. In the US, some of these products such as eco-friendly, natural cleaners and cosmetics, have spilled over the shelves of specialty stores such as Whole Foods into regular departmental stores. One such brand is Seventh Generation Inc. which now has natural antibacterial cleaners and cleaning wipes, even infant diapers and baby wipes.
A lot of local, environment-friendly, biodegradable baby diaper companies such as gDiapers, are now gaining a market niche in the presence of heavyweight brands such as Pampers and Huggies.

As for dairy and other food products, local is the new powerful. There is something so comforting about knowing that your milk comes from local farmers that send out their cattle to peaceful pasture with lots of fresh air and sunshine and without pumping them with hormones, that many of us tend to prefer that over some big name dairy brand.

Then, there are the socially conscious companies such as Toms that donate shoes and other items to people in need. In fact, Toms donates a pair of shoes for every pair purchased! Take another example, Zappos, that motivates its employees including call center workers, giving them freedom to grow and perform their jobs without treating them like assembly line robots. Check out their corporate culture on Zappos Insights.

Imagine if every country in the world embarked on a path of economic freedom for its citizens and created opportunities. That would probably mark an end to global poverty and underdevelopment, needless wars and destruction...

As the famous John Lennon song goes - Imagine...

Nationality - Lines on the earth, lines in our minds - I

This train of thought has been inspired by various personal observations over the years, news from various media, politics and some novels.

The English Patient - One of the chief characters, Count Ladislaus de Almasy, considers himself a man without national boundaries

The Namesake - a touching story of an Indian immigrant family in the United States

(Both of the above novels have been made into acclaimed movies)

and a subscription mail from another blogger who decided to become a US citizen.

Those of us who have lived in more than one country, called more than one place home, know exactly the pull of different directions on our hearts - from the country of birth as well as our country of 
residence.


The First Few Years, Initial Impressions of the United States of America

When I initially landed in the United States, I was floored by the neatness and systematic nature of everything - right from the roads to the malls, restaurants, parking lots and the disciplined sense of traffic on clearly marked lanes. I marveled at the planned manner in which even interstates had numbers and cities/attractions, exits and rest areas were clearly marked and the way driving tests were administered. The absence of corruption from everyday life was a great source (and still is) of admiration.

This is the honeymoon phase. The phase when everything around you seems bathed in a halo of light from paradise. I am not saying that I was so gullible as to believe that there was no crime or poverty or any other problem in the US (after all, I had seen television documentaries on serial killers in America).

However, in general, the attitudes of people and their way of life were, and still are, enchanting.

For the record,  I come not from some podunk, underdeveloped Third World area but from a bustling metropolis, Mumbai, in India. This is a major Asian city and sea port, complete with the stock market, Bollywood, fashion, Miss India contests, newspapers and publishing, banking and corporate offices of a number of companies spread out across various sectors.

Mumbai represents the microcosm of what America represents to the world. People come here (and to other Indian cities such as Bangalore) in search of opportunity, which, in turn, will propel them towards greater personal freedom.

Young graduates from smaller towns come here in search of jobs and get exposed to people from other parts of India, the latest fashions, restaurants, coffee shops, even nightclubs and also sometimes meet their significant other, rather than just stay home in their small towns and settle into an arranged marriage.

Unlike small towns, people have the freedom to dress as they please without being ogled at or sometimes even harassed and live without caring all the time about what the neighbors will think of them.

Disposable income enables them to buy everything from cell phones to television sets and if they earn enough and invest wisely, a flat and a car.

I guess this may be the case with many big cities in the world.

Yet, apart from the malls and McDonald's outlets, there is still a sense of chaos and dirt in Indian cities. Due to overcrowding in cities where people in white collar jobs have to absolutely reside if they wish to move up in their careers, pollution, traffic and waste choke the joy out of a daily peaceful existence. Most have to endure long, harrowing commutes in jam-packed trains and buses or inhale toxic fumes on snail-paced busy roads, leaving little time or opportunity to enjoy nature and outdoor activities.

There is a sense of everything being difficult, some of it due to facts, and I suspect some of it being due to perception, from registering to vote to paying a traffic ticket to, heck, driving from place A to B or finding a clean restroom where there are no malls and fancy restaurants or coffee shops. I had written about the blessing of malls in this respect a few years ago in this post, "Malls and Loos".
Some other bloggers such as Rajeev Srinivasan had mentioned the relative difficulty of daily life in India (sorry, can't find the exact blog post).

And, no matter where you live in India, I still cannot escape the feeling that there is a stifling lack of individual freedom. This is not due to legal or constitutional factors. It is a social construct that has been passed from ancient times but has, of course, changed and become more liberal with modern times.

However, the pressure to marry a person approved by one's parents at the right age, or dressing in a certain manner, or finding a secure job, still remains.

The difference is that younger Indians are more likely to aggressively pursue higher education and a well-paying job and they are also more open to travel, luxury, eating out and the pleasures of life as compared to past generations.

There is also idealism in them as seen by the reaction to Anna Hazare or the candlelit vigils demanding justice for Jessica Lall.

There are also more love marriages, especially in urban areas and Indian models and designers have carved out a niche internationally.

Okay, I have summed up some of the positives and negatives of living in India, not from a superficial, touristy stand point, but from the perspective of the average, aspirational citizen.

                    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

Now, onto the land of the free and the home of the brave as the US National Anthem goes...

America always held a strange appeal for me when I was younger but I never really thought that I would make it my home. Reading about the various interdisciplinary fields and research opportunities in US universities in my Saturday Times of India,  I was fascinated by the fact that one could combine one's interests in different fields, pursue an area of interest not just for the money and expand one's horizons in so many ways. I had a vague sense of America being the land of opportunity.

I had heard about the 'dignity of labor' in America, about how a student at a top college could work as a waiter or dishwasher in a restaurant and not think of such work as below him or her or be perceived by others as somehow inferior.

I knew little about American society or American politics except that they had a different kind of democracy from India's, and that it was a lot more socially liberal than India, just like other 'Western' countries.

It is funny how we lump all Western countries into one and all Eastern countries into another, and, perhaps, African nations, Middle Eastern nations, etc., not realizing the various nuances and glaring differences in their political systems, economies and cultures.

We did study a bit about the American War of Independence and The Declaration of Independence in high school and chapters pertaining to slavery and works by Mark Twain (if I remember correctly).

And popular culture in the form of Hollywood movies, TV series and American novels such as Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn and Archie comics were part of my life.

Coming from an English medium educational background, adjusting to life in an English-speaking country was fairly easy, barring the initial difficulty in understanding the American accent as opposed to India's British English and pronouncing words in a way that the average American did not go, "What's that?"

Note, for example, the difference in which the word, 'mandatory' is pronounced in the US and outside.

Or the more well known 'schedule' pronounced with an 'sh' in British English and 'sk' in American English.

Or the noun form of 'record'. The Brits pronounce both the noun and verb form in a similar fashion whereas the Americans pronounce the noun form differently. You can refer to Dictionary.com for phonetic details.

Americans also roll their 'r's a lot more and soften their 't's as compared to the British.

There is also the difference in spellings between US English and British English such as 'traveling' (US English) and 'travelling' (UK English) and 'honor, flavor, color, tire' (US) and 'honour, flavour, colour, tyre' (UK). US English does not differentiate between the verb and noun forms of 'practice' so there is no verb, 'practise'.

The linguistic adaptation was relatively easy as compared with someone not fluent in English. Overall, the American manner of everyday speech is simple and easy to understand and I felt, even somewhat casual.

One of the facts that strikes you the most is the adherence to law and order and rules here.

People generally follow the rules, whether it is stopping at a 'Stop' sign (trust me, I hadn't seen Stop or Yield signs in India with their transnationally understood octagonal and triangular signs respectively or even heard of them), or signaling to change lanes or dumping garbage in the designated bins.

Live and let live

These are minor when you compare it to the big issues that can really make or break a democratic society.

For example, a person who has never traveled out of a developing or underdeveloped nation or a country with strong religious factions may believe that all Westerners are ultra liberal and do not care much for personal morals such as dressing modestly or respect marriage or religion.

While it is true that one can generally wear what one wants and live with whoever one pleases, America has rules and cultural taboos, too. For example, one cannot streak across the street naked unless you are at a nudist beach and, in the past, most people disapproved of homosexuality. Even today, there is a section of the population for whom homosexuality is a strict no. In general, people have become more accepting of different sexual orientations and even alternate relationship models such as polyamory.

Premarital sex and living together before marriage used to be more of a taboo long ago. And, yes, cheating on your partner and having extra-marital affairs is not cool anywhere.

Did you know that both adultery and homosexuality were punishable offenses in the US a few decades ago and adultery is still so in some states as shown by this Wikipedia article? As for India, there are some archaic laws regarding adultery dating back to the Victorian era probably because no one bothered to amend the Constitution or penal code. Thanks to the efforts of India's progressive citizens and the judiciary, some of them have been repealed, for example, the law against homosexual acts was repealed in 2009.

True, there are stray incidents in the US such as violence against gays. The Mathew Shepard story is one such example. Sometimes, gay teens still get bullied in school and this has led to some tragic suicides.

For all its liberties, America has a right wing, too. 

Women who sleep around are still called 'sluts' and 'whores'. The right wing radio pundit, Rush Limbaugh, got into a lot of hot water after he referred to women using contraceptives as 'sluts'.

And, when strip clubs were opened in some parts of America, there was opposition from the more traditional populace. Today, the grounds for opposition are less clothed in morality and more related to matters such as fears of a higher crime rate as seen here and here.

The difference, though, is that in America, you just can't break the law and get away with it. You will get prosecuted within a reasonable time frame. If citizens do not agree with a law, they campaign against it and work to overturn it. 

Secondly, you can say what you want. The left and the right wing make all sorts of comments but no one can haul you to court because everyone accepts that free speech is sacred. You can yap all you please, but if other people stop talking to you after that, it is your problem.

What I truly admire about the American people is that everyone here is left in peace to live their lives as long as they are not breaking the law. 

Compare that to India where we have a gem of a Constitution and probably most if not all the liberties enshrined in the US Constitution (archaic laws related to homosexuality and adultery were/are still unfortunately on the books passed down from the days of the British Empire) BUT in practice, any political party can run amok.

The main difference between India and the US is not the spirit of the law, rather, its implementation.

Over the last few decades, we had right wing parties such as the RSS and Shiv Sena and their affiliates or emulators telling girls they should not wear jeans and go to night clubs, sometimes physically obstructing business establishments, without any regard for individual rights. 

What is even more depressing is that many Indians actually support such actions in the name of defending Indian 'culture'. Culture can never be forced down anyone's throat and democracy can never mature and progress without individual liberty. Most importantly, cultures change, they evolve.

What such parties do not understand is that Indians living abroad maintain their culture and traditions very well. For example, many of us wear cute tops, jeans and skirts and occasionally go to clubs here but also celebrate Navratri and Diwali and wear salwar kameezes and bindis and host Indian dinner parties complete with samosas, gajar ka halwa and medu wadas. Heck, there are Indian associations for various linguistic groups such as Tamil Mandrams, Malayali Samajams and Maharashtrian ones.

Some Indians actively participate in classical music recitals and Bharatnatyam performances, too. Indian maestros tour the US and other countries, attracting a loyal fan following.

The sheer ease of daily life  

Daily life is just too easy in the US if you compare it with India. Consider renting an apartment. In America, you look it up on the Internet, talk to the apartment office, take a tour, sign the lease and make whatever payments are necessary. You'll get your own space complete with dishwasher, stove, refrigerator, running water, electricity, a decent bathroom, mostly even a washer and dryer. 

Call the cable company for your Internet and TV and you are ready to settle in.

In India, well, life is a little more complicated. True, you have real estate agents and local cable operators who are kind of middlemen rather than service providers but, sometimes, you have to haggle with them and you don't get so many amenities in a flat.

There are places where you still have water cuts, power cuts and all those little hassles.

And, there are some apartment complexes or housing societies as they are called, where the neighborhood Aunty or Mami (Tamilian for Aunty) will certainly raise a storm or at least her eyebrows if there is a group of single guys wanting to rent out a place in close proximity to their teenage daughters. 

Ample space and scope for leisure 

As the Master Card ad says, there are some things that money can't buy. Clean roads, tree-lined boulevards and local parks for walking, bicycling and just enjoying the company of nature are available virtually all over the US. To add icing to the cake, there are umpteen avenues for recreation and sports ranging from skiing to kayaking and skydiving.

Unfortunately, India needs a lot of work done in the civic area. I remember visiting the posh Juhu neighborhood of Mumbai where a lot of Bollywood stars live in their outrageously priced homes. Guess what, the choking traffic and streets so crowded that you would have to have serious maze-navigating skills, are the same as in the poorest localities.

Smaller towns are not faring much better either. Streets are shared by everyone from pedestrians to hawkers and trucks and there are very few well-maintained outdoor spaces.


The existing noise pollution is compounded by festivities during Indian religious events such as Navratri, Ganesh Chaturthi and Deepavali, to name a few major ones, not to mention secular events such as elections, weddings, etc.

                                                                      Fall in the US 

                                                    The green countryside in Southern India


Sorry, I don't have pictures of the busy streets in Indian cities that I can share in public.

Women and work

You can do a lot of things as a woman here. You'll find women in hardware stores such as Home Depot or driving trucks and public transport buses or even working as cable company service people. 

Women can technically do everything in India, too. I have seen girls working in gas stations and factories back home, too. It is just that there is more of a general sense of safety and opportunity in US society.

Individualism and a plethora of stars and entertainment

I remember reading in my civic classes about the founding values of the US - life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. 

Individualism is celebrated in America. The average person's contributions are highly valued. I had seen a trend in the Indian media, particularly in the 90s and early 200s, of glorifying only some individuals, be it certain Bollywood actors or cricket stars. 

Open a mainstream US newspaper and one will not find much celebrity talk at all. On the contrary, I was pleasantly surprised to read about teachers, gardeners, local heroes and such.

There are tons of actors, models, athletes, pop stars and other celebrities that are featured in magazines. Individuals from other walks of life get their limelight, too. Lots of people are well dressed, made up and are shown to be pursuing their dreams.

In short, you won't see only the same stars talked about day in and day out. There is a huge variety. India also has its chefs, fitness experts and athletes who are not from cricket. It is just that their volume in the US is staggering.

When it comes to movies, I was excited to discover different types of movie channels and channels exclusively dedicated to food and travel. There are stars in all these areas - chefs, physical trainers, adventurers and TV hosts.

Of particular interest to me were the movie channels dedicated to true stories and mysteries and I also watched a little bit of science fiction. 

India has a multitude of TV channels, too. What is more, we have TV series and movies in multiple languages. What I am talking about is the type of movies and entertainment, the genre, not the number.

The average person in America is aspirational. Uniqueness is welcomed. What I have felt after living here is the opening up of a wide range of possibility inside me. The 'do what you love and find your niche' mantra circulates in some form a lot.

As an individual, I now have both India and America in my psychological make-up and life path. 

Immigrants change a country and their chosen land changes them, too. I think immigration changes the land of birth, too, if significant numbers start emigrating. Maybe it is not just emigration but the forces of economics and global politics that cause the change but the diaspora of any country can have a very positive impact on it.

More to come in Part 2...

My sincere thanks to Wikipedia for all the information that I have linked to, along with some news and other organization sites.

More inspiring blogs and a little paradise for tea lovers

I had said there was more to come from my side.

Well, here are are my favorites from my wanderings on the vast ocean that is the Internet...

The Unlost is a blog by a girl who has decided to challenge the status quo of slogging away in a cubicle at a job you don't like just to buy security and some material things. Her posts are hilarious and touch a chord with lots of folks, young and not so young.

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Balance in Me is a site devoted to, as the name suggests, leading a life of balance, inner peace and harmony. It has loads of useful information and lovely guest posts. Check out the post on Women's Day. It has a beautiful ode to womanhood and a lovingly put together list of links to other inspiring blogs and sites.

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Recently, I chanced upon the website of a tea lounge in San Francisco through Leo's Zen Habits blog. This is a group of tea shops that are part of the establishment called Samovar Tea Lounge. Do check out their blog. They have interesting interviews with other bloggers, writers and technology people.

What I love most about Samovar is their Zen philosophy of living life in the present moment and the brewing and enjoyment of a fine tea symbolizes just that. 


I am a big fan of tea, especially Indian masala chai (a concoction of black tea and milk with ginger and spices such as cardamom, cinnamon and cloves, sometimes even fennel seeds and black pepper). There is nothing like a steaming hot cup of tea while contemplating life, listening to music and watching the rain or snow outside.

I am trying to watch my caffeine intake but I give in to my tea cravings at least once a day.

Tea is a ritual for many families. The Japanese are known for their elaborate tea ceremonies. Tea is symbolic with the British way of life and hospitality. For me, growing up in India, I would have tea late in the afternoon with a pastry called 'khaari biscuit', which is a multilayered, salty, empty pastry puff or 'rusks', a hard, crunchy, slightly sweet bread or some other biscuits, and a newspaper spread out before me. 

Note to American readers: Biscuits in India are more like crackers, not the dish that is available in McDonalds and other places. The Indian term is probably from the UK because where else would Indians have derived it from? 

I miss the many varieties of biscuits in India, ranging from the cream-filled ones to the plain dipping Marie biscuits. Lately, I had a craving for Britannia Bourbon - the chocolate cream filled biscuit that is a little more expensive in Indian grocery stores here in the US.

Although I had heard about the health benefits of green tea, thanks to nutritionists such as Anjali Mukherjee who used to counsel contestants for Miss India and write columns in newspapers such as the Times of India, I never saw it regularly sold in grocery stores in India many years ago. These days, green tea has become more readily available. It was after I came to the US that I was exposed to the notion that tea did not mean just the tea leaf, Camellia sinensis. The fascinating array of herbal teas such as peppermint, chamomile and lots more, claiming to benefit people in many ways, ranging from relieving stomach disorders to menstrual cramps, is simply staggering.

I learnt about Chinese oolong and white tea, too, which basically differ from black tea in the level of oxidation and maturity of the tea leaf. There are many varieties of Chinese teas and we came across a few of them in the World Spice Merchant store near Pike Place Market in Seattle. I had never seen full leaf teas in India, let along oolong and white tea, which is surprising since India is a major tea exporter. [There are a lot of items that had somehow never become commonplace in India such as tofu given the proximity of nations such as Thailand and China and that is also very strange.]

The sheer number of flavors that can be added to tea such as orange blossom and peach expand the recipe list of this fascinating leaf even more. Tasting tea becomes the act of a connoisseur, just like tasting wine, with its myriad subtle aromas.

I have tried the Darjeeling Full Leaf Organic and Assam Full Leaf teas at Peet's Coffee and Tea and I can vouch for it, there is something about the aroma and satiety of sipping a full leaf tea that dried tea cannot equal.

I wish Indians (and people in other nationalities) followed their passions and opened up such unique establishments, in line with their philosophy and oriented towards customer service. There would be clean restrooms, a safe, cozy place to meet up with your friends and chat and one would get exposed to simple gastronomic pleasures.

Sula Wines is an agro-based establishment that was set up by a budding Indian entrepreneur which is such an example.

'Chai kadas' (tea shops) in Kerala, where the public gathered to gossip and discuss politics, and Irani tea shops in Mumbai (formerly known as Bombay) were iconic. The 'cutting chai' (a half glass of strong, milky tea - even the glass has a typical shape) sold on the street side in India can still beat the tea served at five star hotels.

My college room mate from Kashmir told me of the many cups of tea they consumed in a day, one of which was intriguingly called 'kehwa' (if I remember it correctly). It was through my Kashmiri friends that I probably first heard of the 'samovar' and even got to see one.

I would love to try all these some day including Tibetan tea with yak's butter.

A long time ago, I had also written about another beloved tea of mine, the red tea, known as rooibos (pronounced as roy-bos), from South Africa. This has no caffeine and brims with antioxidants.

I am off to make myself a cup of tea and when I visit San Francisco, I surely am hoping to check out Samovar.

Note: There was a typo in this post, 'newspaper' had been typed in mistakenly as 'newspapaer'. Sorry about that. Thanks.

New find - A blog for multipotentialites

Over the last few days, I was busy trawling the blogosphere and in the course of my web sojourn, I hit some treasures - lovely, inspiring blogs that truly and absolutely rock.

I am sharing one of these with you today.

Puttylike is a blog that focuses on people with multiple interests and abilities, who often find it hard to dedicate their entire lives to just one pursuit or profession. In short, it is all about multipotentialites and helping them channel their many passions into their life's work. I had never heard of that term before.

I was a 'finger-in-many-pies' kind of person, or rather, a budding 'multipotentialite' as I now know myself to be, right from my school days. I participated in a wide variety of activities ranging from public speaking to group singing (I was not confident enough to sing solo), with everything such as plays, writing and drawing/painting thrown into the mix.

What is even more interesting is that if someone asked me which my favorite subject was,  I would be hard pressed to name one. What was a little more intriguing and a little worrying at times was that there wasn't a subject that I despised either.
I loved history, geography, science, even math and languages which I easily scored high marks in. Even a second language that I was not fluent in did not make it into my hate list. My hate list was empty.

Looking back now, I feel that was a golden period in my life when learning was fun. While marks and competition to be at the top of the class always loomed large, they were not the sole focus of my academic life and that was the secret to success, too.
Later in life, I became too caught up in worries, worries that I had not done enough, worked hard enough or smart enough or as much as my neighbor or enough to make the mark and, of course, worries about results.

In degree college and in working life, I missed the variety that was the part of my life from reading John Keats and Tukaram, Jerome K. Jerome and Munshi Premchand, or learning about Eratosthenes and volcanoes and the French Revolution, along with Henri Becquerel and radioactive theory and cell division, not to mention trigonometry and card game probability.

Laser focus on one area alone bored me quite a bit though I some times wonder if I just chose the wrong major. There were core subjects in college that I enjoyed and grasped very well though. Extra-curricular activities were a part of my college life, too, and I added some sports (badminton) to my repertoire though I was never really an athletic type.

A few months ago, I started reading a book on Leonardo da Vinci, the Renaissance genius, named "How to think like Leonardo da Vinci" (note: the link points to Amazon.com). In my childhood and early adulthood, I only knew da Vinci as  a legendary painter, the creator of the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper.
The master became a huge inspiration to me after I started learning more about his life from museum exhibits and other sources of information. Imagine trying to learn about the human body when one is not a professional doctor or about the science of flying when one has no formal training in the area.

How many worlds there are still to explore and how many of us even bother to notice patterns of nature around us, be it the constellations in the sky or the behavior of birds in our own backyards?
Most of our knowledge is bookish, it is rather information passed down to us, rather than anything we experience or observe on our own. That, I feel, is the tragedy of our Information Age and the mad race of getting into a good college and establishing a career.

Some of the world's greatest minds, be they scientists or philosophers or many other professionals, were keen observers.
Today, I am inspired all the more to explore, to learn and utilize many more of my talents than I used to in the past.

Do check out Puttylike and the book that I mentioned.

P.S. I just found out that Eratosthenes was a multipotentialite, too, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Online Healing Fest

I have been in hibernation for about three weeks now on this blog.

There is lots I have to share with you readers.

Here is something that I have been listening to:

The Online Spring Forest Healing Fest

hosted by Learning Strategies. This is a series of free sessions on Qigong every day for about a week that started on this Monday, March 12, 2012.

From what I've learnt so far, Qigong is an ancient Chinese healing practice that deals with energy flow and the body's own capacity to heal itself. It is used to help with a variety of physical and mental ailments.

Note: I am not a doctor so any information posted here should not be used as a substitute for your physician's advice or prescription.


Every day, two new online sessions are posted on the site at about 10:00 a.m. US Central time and are available until 9:30 a.m. the next day. If you wish to listen to them afterwards, you have to upgrade by payment. Registration is free so those who wish to avail of this opportunity, please do.

Until next time, then. Ciao!

Gender Stereotyping - Catch them young

The Oscars are just around the corner, next Sunday to be more precise.
One of the bloggers at Backstage Unscripted had written about women in comedy and how they are getting their due during this year's Oscars. Women were not appreciated as much as men for their gift of evoking laughter from others. The said post beautifully illustrates how even cinema is now divided into flicks aimed at girls and guys.

There are so many gender stereotypes that we blindly swallow from the society and culture around us.

I highly recommend the movie, "Bend it like Beckham" to illustrate my point. I've heard that "Billy Elliot" is based on a similar premise, too, although I've yet to watch it.

I - In the cradle and nursery:

As most of my friends have either had babies or are expecting, I get to see this whole pink for girls - blue for boys fashion in its full glory. In India, prenatal revelation of the gender of the fetus is banned by law as this enables some male-chauvinistic families to abort it if it is a female so people can't really buy gender-specific stuff in advance for the baby.
We do see little girls decked up in pink frilly dresses but I had never seen the color-coordination rage as much until I came to the United States. Not only does the stereotyping extend to color but decorations of baby rooms and toys. Thus, one gets to see 'Bob the Builder' plastered all over a little boy's room and a lot of Lego sprawling on the floor but go to a little girl's room and we get to see Barbie dolls, mermaids and princesses from every conceivable fairy tale. Dora from the modern ages would probably make it, too.

                                           Boys' room decorated with 'Bob The Builder'

Lego recently introduced some toys specifically designed to attract girls with their pastel color combinations. There has been a lot of controversy regarding this. Just read this article and the comments on the Huffington Post.
Some people say that boys are naturally more inclined towards building, construction, tinkering and the like whereas girls are naturally attracted to playing house and dressing up dolls. In short, machines and tools are more boy-friendly whereas anything to do with people skills, babying and housekeeping is more girl-friendly.

                                     

II - The wedding princess stereotype:

Well, if it was just some innocent child's play, it could be left at that. But wait, it gets more complicated as kids grow up. Boys are taught not to cry, not to be a wimp and girls are taught to be 'nice'.

Every romantic Hollywood comedy talks about how, since she was a little girl, the heroine had always dreamed of 'this' day (meaning her wedding day) when she could wear a stunning white gown and a sparkling diamond ring on her finger and walk down the aisle to meet her Prince Charming, her knight in shining armor.
The drama around weddings sells TV shows and movies which otherwise don't have that much to say, really.
A little side note: [I thought Bollywood and Indian weddings with their 1000-plus guest list of everybody and their cousin plus a pirate's booty worth of gold jewelry and exquisite silk garments, not to mention our three-course meals with at least ten dishes, was so much of excess. However, I was mistaken. 
Indian weddings at least don't bother with who sits next to whom. They don't have bridesmaids and best men and maids of honor and all the family drama that goes along with it. And, since alcohol is never served at traditional feasts, Indians don't have to worry about a drunk ex-boyfriend ruining the party with embarrassing disclosures.
I have yet to see an Indian bride throwing a diva-like tantrum because, honestly, if you are marrying into an Indian family, you better be on your best, modest, ideal daughter-in-law behavior on your wedding day. Most Indians are still deferential towards their parents and elders and, added to it all, if Mom and Dad are footing the bill for the entire shindig or at least a huge chunk of it, you would be grateful, isn't it?]

It is good that, amongst the cheesy, romantic Hollywood stuff, a smart writer and director could come up with a hilarious, ironical movie like "Bridesmaids" that causes the viewer to both pity and laugh at the leading ladies.
As a woman, I can't understand the wedding day craze. As a young girl, I did have different ideas of what Mr. Right would look like but I never actually fantasized about getting married, not as far as I can remember. In fact, I once remember having a nightmare about my wedding day, he he he.

I doubt most women around the world dream of wedding gowns and a five-star dinner party. Most would probably dream of a happy family with a home, children and dogs. Or maybe going to work and coming back to a nice home-cooked meal, preferably with a helping hand from the darling husband. Or being able to achieve something professionally and yet have a happy family to take vacations with.
They dream of a happy marriage, not necessarily a perfect wedding.
Of course, all girls want to look pretty and be admired on their special day. But beyond that, there definitely seems to be cultural conditioning at work.

In short, women have many of the same dreams as men do. They want to travel around the world, see the 'Aurora Borealis' and the pyramids. Many want to be acknowledged for their professional contributions. Many would like to make a positive difference in the world in some way. Some want to be famous. Some want to be rich and own a big house with a swimming pool and a luxury car.

III - Women in science, engineering and technical fields:

The stereotypes extend into the professional sphere as well. The geeky boys are into the technical/engineering stuff  and women march off to non-technical stuff. At least, the majority do. At various IT firms that I have worked in,  men outnumbered women in all the high-end technical positions such as development of software and I am not even counting the statistics for American women and foreign-born ones.
Are we unconsciously discouraging girls from building, tinkering and finding out how stuff works?

I haven't spent that much time around kids so I can't honestly say, given a certain kind of toy, if a boy or girl will be more inclined to play with it. But I know that girls are interested in science kits and Scrabble and brain-numbing puzzles, too. Maybe even Lego. The other day, I was in the Lego aisle, purchasing a birthday gift for my friend's son and I went, "Wow! This stuff looks cool, I should try to assemble one of these..."
In school, we girls participated in science projects and I remember trying out the experiment of wrapping an electric wire around a magnet with my father that resulted in somewhat dangerous results of sparking.
When I see the solar power kits and other science mini-projects for children these days, I feel a slight pang of longing. If only we had these things as children...

There was a Japanese series called 'Giant Robot' on the state-run Doordarshan in India that I watched when I was a child. A little boy commanded a gigantic robot to save them, using a control on his wrist watch, maybe it was a device that looked like a wrist watch.  We children played 'Giant Robot' in the dusty playground outside our housing area just like we played 'Doctor, doctor' and housekeeping in kindergarten. My mother told me stories of the English scientist, George Stephenson and his steam engine invention, as she fed me dinner (I may have confused his story with James Watt).
I watched the puppetry series 'Fireball' on the same limited-channel television and dreamed of becoming an astronaut when I was barely learning to read and write. Girls would love to understand science, too. Maybe boys would play with dolls, too, who knows?

There is one point I concede, though. I have seen very few girls in my social circle that actually tinkered with stuff. My brother was fascinated by cars and mechanical instruments and would have loved to take them apart. Even today, he knows his computer stuff from the motherboard to security administration on the desktop. I loved science and was curious about a lot of things ranging from microprocessors to micro-organisms but never saw myself as a technical person, getting down on my hands and knees to fix broken machinery.
Sometimes, I was just scared to break things. Overall though, I am just not that inclined towards breaking apart and fixing equipment of any kind. Maybe girls are more afraid of experimenting because they worry about consequences. On the other hand, women get too complacent if there is a guy around to do things for them and the current disposable culture where the cost of fixing a TV is probably at least a quarter of what one would pay for a brand new one does not help that much either.

However, my mother is a Jill of all trades who would fix leaking taps and find use for every little stray object that she had saved, handle the finances and tutor my brother. She is a woman who is also politically savvy and avidly reads newspapers and magazines and knows the current political, economic and social climate. Unfortunately, she grew up in an age when women were not encouraged to go out and work and get advanced degrees. For a home maker, she has been a fiery, intellectual one and I owe a lot of my achievements to her prodding and encouragement.

IV - Prejudice in the office and soft technical environments:


When I started on my first job at a software company, I was told bluntly by a somewhat cocky young man that women are simply not as good when it comes to technical things and another female coworker agreed with him. If this were quantum physics or rocket science or even a large boiler plate factory, one would probably have to possess some outstanding technical chops to shine. Ditto for a hardcore software product development firm like Google or Apple. However, this was a small, services-oriented software company where young college graduates with hardly any experience were launching their careers. This young man was probably not that much far ahead as compared to some of his female peers yet the notion that the male brain is inherently superior, existed.
                                       

                             

                                                 

In the geek movie, "Social Network", girls were just party companions and freeloaders, arm candy for the dudes who changed Web history. Of course, keeping in account actual events, women may not have had much of a role in Facebook's or Napster's early days. However, it was sad to see most of the girls depicted as little more than the stereotypical, hard partying, vacuous college girl as aptly captured by another Huffington Post journalist here.

I've read about the 10,000 hours rule in Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers. If you practice any craft for 10,000 hours, working on your weaknesses,  you will get better at it. Talent does matter but by itself, it does not amount to much. Most of the brilliant programmers I've seen started writing code while they were still in school so by the time they are in their 20s, they are far ahead of the pack that simply graduated from college with a degree in computer science but never actually developed a single application.

Women who are truly interested in programming should start tinkering around. You will get better. One day, you could launch a kick-ass product with a pink and purple background and Wall Street might be clamoring for you to go public.

It is not about getting better than men, it is about developing one's own innate abilities, gifts that we never even knew that we possessed.

What if we let children play with everything in sight? Maybe the boy you thought would become a great rocket scientist may end up being the next great Gandhi of human rights and the little princess you thought would get a degree and a regular office job might be the next Marie Curie or Kalpana Chawla.

Note: This post has undergone a minor correction and the last two images have been altered for correct Java programming syntax (it may not be perfect) since it was last published - a few minutes ago.