Suddenly Famous and politically challenged

The Target - some of those "suddenly turned famous" personalities and their self perceived notion of becoming voice of authority on topics much beyond their intellectual quotient. With a specific reference to Arundhati Roy, who became famous for her One novel; the fame got her popularity and that boosted her confidence, and probably made her think why not use this fame for a more righteous cause. Besides, it is basically fashionable to be called a ‘social worker’ maybe a ‘women rights activist’ in the circles of the rich and the famous. And so this damsel probably turned into a ‘women rights activist’, and more recently ‘supporter of azaad kashmir’ doctrine. While there is nothing wrong in working as a women’s rights activist, the later cause is what drew flakes.

Now, while Arundhati cries foul on some of the Indian army’s lapses, which the Kashmiri’s have been repeating time and again; we as mature audience have to look at things without getting too emotional and not do the same mistake of looking at these isolated instances and come to a hasty conclusion. Before giving much credence to her opinions, we need to check for her background to see whether she could be the authority to talk on a topic as complex as the Kashmir issue. An issue that’s dear to a billion citizens of the world.

Born in an isolated part of the country, daughter to a women’s rights’ activist and a Bengali father; she is bound to take on the parental genes. No doubt the Bengali’s have an upper hand in English literary skills. So no surprise she wrote her only novel for which she even bagged an award. Now she writes about the plight of Kashmiri Muslims in a very heart warming manner. And when she drew sharp and negative criticism for the recent views within India, she choose to write about the same issue on NYTimes, for a larger international audience. The US, for reasons has always fancied Pakistan and would gladly encourage anyone who wishes to take shot at crying foul about India. That is probably the reason they happily chose to publish her article.

What irks the average reader is the way she approaches the problem with a simplistic view and so easily comes to conclusion. Since she has decided to be a women’s rights activist; the act of a women getting raped and murdered is the ultimate of all the un-Godly acts. And so she acutely feels for those victims in Kashmir. No one with an ability to think rationally will say this is ok or pardonable. However, it is not the main issue; it is a very small part of a much larger and complex problem.

It is rather unfortunate that there have been isolated cases where someone from the local police or the army has done this dastardly act. The ones responsible should no doubt be punished. However, when we see the plight of these Kashmiri people, why is it that almost all of the victims belong to the Muslim religion? Arundhati will be quick to reply that it is the Muslims who are in majority. And this is the problem. Most of the Hindu’s of Kashmir were forced to leave their homes and flee the state. And it was certainly not the army and the local police who were responsible for riding the Kashmiri Hindu’s out of their homeland. Since this happened more than a decade ago; some cleverly choose to ignore it. Who will decide that driving out hundreds of thousands of people out from their home and forcing them to settle out of state is an act that isless sinister than the act of a few women getting raped.

The Muslims would never have had to face the sufferings had the peace and stability of the state not been disrupted. Had they not forced the Hindu's of the state to flee.

Now when we look at this in hind site, it appears more like a planned aggression. The isolated rapes and the suffering of the muslim kashmiri's is thus part of the collateral damage. Thus picking one side of the story and publishing it in the western media is not done.

Arundhati should be the last person who can be even asked to publicly comment on such a sensitive issue. She spent her childhood in Kerala, a communist state, studied architecture as part of her acadamic background. Her second marriage was to a filmmaker, she did her cameo in films. She did several jobs including working as an aerobics instructor at five-star hotels, before she earned her cash and repute after her book became a hit seller.

And thus NYTimes choosing Arundhati's view on such a complex issue probably makes you wonder!

She can be excused for her lack of rationale thinking; she reminds me of that wood cutter who was very sincere in his work; once cut the branch of the tree on which he was himself seated. Now should we stone this dumb wood cutter or refer him as an ideal wood cutter or simply ignore him and move on…

The dead Katta kommunication lines…

‘Katta’ - a Marathi term which means a small piece of brick wall or a cement construct that is about waist high; which may or may not be built to be used as a place to sit upon but is often used as though that was the exact purpose. Typically these katta’s are the boundary walls of buildings, schools, housing society’s or any cement or wooden wall like things where a few people can rest their laurels upon. Even the small flight of stairs of a public library or college can be referred as ‘katta’ by the city urchins.

Back in the 90’s – it was the school and college days when we used to use the katta as our daily meeting place. Our katta was the boundary wall of the my building. Those were the days when mobile phone wasn’t invented; so the only mode of communication used to be the phone landlines. And back then, the local calls between landlines weren’t free and unlimited. Also, another disadvantage of a landline was that it was meant more for the entire family than as a personal and private asset. And each time it rang, it rang loud and clear for everyone inside the house to notice of a phone call. And talking with friends on the phone was and probably is even today, not considered a very welcome thing by the parents community. Thus, calling up a bunch of friends every evening and coordinating when and what time to meet would require at least 5 to 10 phone calls; more if you had a larger group. So there had to be a better way of communication.

We had two techniques – the one ring technique and the bike horn signal. While the later was used to indicate the arrival of any of the katta gang members, the prior would be used as a early warning system. So typically a missed call or a single ring on one’s landline in the evening would probably mean that one of the katta members was ready to meet at the katta; and that others should follow suit. One ring technique was very effective, as it doesn’t any charge to give just one ring and then hang up before the other person answered. This, in today’s mobile world is still a in-use technique, but is now called as missed called technique.

Come to think of it, when used effectively this one ring technique could probably be used like Morse code; maybe half as comprehensive.

So back in the 90’s, evening time would be when the first katta member would arrive and announce his arrival with a tit-ta-tee horn signal. It’s funny how the developed world has come to shun the use of horn as something that should be used only in case of dire emergency or is considered impolite if used casually. Thankfully in Pune, like in any city in India, the vehicular traffic is so high and chaotic that the use of the horn is so frequent, no-one really minds it. But yes, the Katta gang was considerate of the fact of trying to avoid the use of bike horns at night; when most of the civilized society members would be in their beds.

It is amazing to think back about those days, almost 2 decades ago, without the inventions of mobile phones and internet and broadband; there was never a situation when we felt crippled by lack of means to communicate and stay in touch. Today, when all of the katta members have grown out of their bikes and baggy jeans and are economically well off to afford all the latest means of communications including the free stuff like the social networking sites; none of the means are used to communicate or even keep in touch!

Recession, Job loss, Patriotism, Oppression

Mar 2009 - My flight on the way back from Orlando to San Jose was rather interesting. No, there wasn’t a blonde sitting besides me, wish there was. I reached the airport duly on time, got in to the security checkpoint and out again, realized I had a can of coke that I didn’t want to throw away. So I out again to finish my coke and got back in.

On the way to the airport, my Indian cab driver, who had by now become an acquaintance, who used to ferry me to and from the hotel to my office for the week that I spent in Orlando, told me a interesting news. He mentioned that they (the federal government) were thinking of passing a bill where in immigrants in the US, better known as H1B workers would get another way to gain permanent residence in the country. There are many a thousands of Indians who would want to settle down in the US. Basically, want to quit India and live their life in the land of opportunities.

I must admit, I too have contemplated of keeping myself an option of having permanent residence in US. But somehow I haven’t been fully convinced enough to take the first step, that of getting a H1B visa.

So the new proposed Bill would grant green card to those individuals who have purchased a house in the US. This is yet another bid to get some movement in the bottomed out real estate market.

I was surprised to hear this as it was in stark contrast to Obama’s stance on the H1/L1 immigrated people in the US. Just recently there were talks of making it harder for people to get H1B’s; on the other hand, he also wants to discourage companies who are engaged in the outsourcing model. While he has the right to pass any law or bill that is in the best interest of US, it is interesting how human beings evolve, define laws and fight wars against the wrong doers.

Back to my flight, it was a long 5 hour journey. Luckily I had the morning edition of US Today. I pulled it out of my bag and noticed the picture on the front page. It was a camper sitting outside his tent. While the title of the main article referred to job loss I was confused for a brief moment on how it was related to a camper.

Then as I read the under script, it dawned upon me. It was a jobless person being forced to live in a tent as he couldn’t afford to pay the rent for his apartment.

A result of current recession, thousands of people across the country have been forced out of their homes and onto streets, tents, municipal shelters and some even have chosen to live their lives out of their vehicles – mostly cars! The article quoted many American individuals, most of them singles, who had managed to have a mediocre job, some of them even maintained middle class status, having being suddenly forced to become homeless. These were the work force from the housing, construction, real estate and some even from the automobile industry.

One person quoted was an electronics graduate who worked in the auto sector. It was indeed heartening to read these first hand stories of these individuals.

The third page of US Today again caught my attention; it carried yet another interesting article titled “Tribes wait for US recognition”. One would think of these tribes to be probably belonging to some of the recently invaded countries, namely Iraq or Afghanistan. But instead the story was about a tribe of Native Americans who are strangely referred as Indians!

Per the article, there are about 562 recognized Native Indian tribes within the US while another 250 are in line to get recognized. It is very shocking to read that even after 200 after their declaration of independence, you still see justice not granted to some of the poor Native Americans who lost their beautiful land to the European settlers aka invaders!

If we put the numbers together it would appear that there would be in all 800 odd Native American tribes who originally belonged and rightfully owned this American soil. Of which 1/3rd are still awaiting to be recognized as US citizen!

It’s ironic that today the US boosts of being a world super power and takes it upon their own freewill to decide how other countries should or should not conduct. And if found inappropriate get into self proclaimed wars against injustice, all in the name of good humanity! And for such a nation, they still have to recognize 1/3rd of the original population of the native soil that these invaders proudly proclaim to be US.

If the Native Americans are being made to face such humiliation, it is easy to imagine how should one Asian Indian would treated by this land of double standards.

And if today, Obama is coming up measures to curb Asians from settling on the US soils, perhaps it is time for the Asians to learn a lesson or two from the earlier settlers at how to succeed.

Follow the leader

What’s so unique about the title of this post? The title starts with a verb, or an action, implicitly expected from the reader, encouraging all the readers to ‘follow’ a leader. An action that we often take for granted. In the corporate world quite a few workshops and training camps are conducted with an objective of helping the participants to become good leaders. There are zillions of books available in the print and electronic media highlighting the virtues of great leaders and their leadership qualities, often coaxing the readers to imitate or become like one of them. We certainly all want to be successful leaders and some of us do make a conscious attempt to imbibe the qualities of great leaders.
All these workshops and literature might suggest that it is indeed very important for an individual to learn and acquire the skills of a good leader. In doing so, these books literally suggest to anyone, or everyone who reads these books that he can become a good leader by doing x, y, z. Imagine, if this were true, we will end up having a nation, country, organization that is full of leaders. So what is so wrong about everyone turning into a good leader? For one, everyone cannot become a leader as the definition of leader is a personality that invokes many followers to follow him. Secondly, all leaders with no followers is as good as a soldier on a battlefield with all guns, but no bullets.
For even a single leader to become one, there is one vital catch, and that is he needs hundreds if not millions of followers. So in creating a successful leader there should be two forces that should come into play - one that drives ‘a’ particular individual to become a leader; and the second, more important, developing a will amongst all the others to want to become that individuals follower.
And this is problem. While all of us want to become a successful leader, how many of us are resolute to one self on wanting to become a successful follower? Becoming a successful follower is much simpler than becoming a leader. And yet we never consciously think of becoming one. Maybe today’s competitive world has made us to think that becoming a follower is a lower qualification. And since we are all very competitive, we want to become leaders instead. Many a times, our egos stop us from becoming a good follower.
If you think of the term ‘Follower’, the immediate picture that flashes is that of some religious groups, wearing saffron or white clothes and sitting in front of a bearded ‘sadhu’; maybe someone like Ramdev Baba. They are definitely his followers! There is nothing wrong in this picture. However, ‘followers’ encompass a much wider spectrum of individuals, events and groups. We as an individual are first expected to be followers. Only a successful follower can progress to becoming a successful leader.
And the ‘follower’ in us starts the day we are born. As a new born baby we observe that everybody around us seems to be walking and talking. So we start to follow as we learn and so we grow. As we commute we are expected to ‘follow’ traffic rules. A good follower will always make it a point to stop at the red light at a traffic signal before the zebra crossing. As individuals we are required to ‘follow’ defined processes in every walk of life. Even within the corporate world, we are bound to follow the processes laid out. In the BPO world, we actually belong to one process or the other. While our constitution reads our rights, we are expected to follow the law. And yet we tend to cheat, twist or bribe our way through.
Becoming a good follower is an important trait that one should inculcate. And yet, we find no workshops, trainings or books where the importance its “How to’s” are taught. Since we like to quantify things let us put some numbers. For every one leader; there has to be at least hundred followers. Let us accept this as a postulate. Now if we conduct ten leadership workshops in a corporate organization; we would proportionately be required to conduct a thousand Followership workshops to develop as many followers that will be required to make those leaders successful.
In our country of a billion individuals where all complain about not having a good leader; we can still turn thing around if we all stop complaining and start becoming good ‘Followers’ one self. We are certain to find a few good leaders.
The “how to” are three simple steps –
Introspect to yourself the core values you yourself honestly believe in
Identify the leaders around you, who according to you share’s the same values
Start following your leaders with all your trust