It's been quite a while since my last post and I now really appreciate everyone who tells that writer's block can last quite a while. Agreed.
It's been quite trying times on both personal and professional fronts. Personal - will keep personal :) Professional, Yes. 3 years & 4 countries. United States, Australia, India and now Singapore. Life has been mostly lived out of serviced apartments and suitcases. But yes, life has moved on and how.
Sydney was nice and welcoming. The 'mate culture' was a definite change from the more 'professional' American way. In between 2 visits that were well spaced out, I discovered one of the most beautiful and inspiring jogging tracks in the world (Domain park-Mrs Macquaries chair-along the Sydney harbour - Opera house ) I'll write for sure about the Sydney I loved one of these days.
But today, it's the Country that has hit me quite hard :) The island of Singapore.Call it a Country, a state or a City - choose anything you want and you'll still be right.
It's been a month now since I reached Singapore on a short assignment for my company. All the people I spoke to told me it's much like India and so you need not worry about anything. I normally read up a lot about any new place I visit, but the ease that most claimed with adjusting to Singapore made me a bit care free I guess. So I packed whatever I could grab into my bags, went speed shopping along with a loving but anxious gf and flew out of Chennai the following night.
I have flown via Changi (Singapore's world class Airport) before and was always appreciative of the systems in place. This time around a bit different ... I was flying 'into' Singapore. The airline announcements can be a bit scary for the uninitiated but I was taken for a surprise when I walked out of the airport with the ease of walking out of a shopping mall. Trust me,in my last 4 years of traveling cross country, I've never got out of an Airport so soon. The whole affair at immigration might have lasted less than 20 secs. Efficient systems all around.
The drive home was nice & very western-ly. Beautiful sidewalks , Traffic signs and rules strictly followed.Of course coming from India, the high speed commuting was a welcome add-on. It was also surprising that Taxis were quite cheap compared to the west. Singapore had indeed made it to the first world ! A real achievement for an Asian country .Others (India included) aspire,you did it.
The first thing that strikes you when you walk in Singapore (Yes, walking is perhaps the best way to explore this Country) is the fact that no one bothers anybody ever ! (You definitely have to discount the survey taking youngsters & the over enthusiastic pamphlet distributors :) But yes, there is a definitive need for Singaporeans to be more social. You can complete an entire journey in their world class (again!) MRT system without even a single soul looking into your eyes. I do know that it's not a much appreciated thing to do in the Chinese culture, but then it can sometimes make a newcomer feel lonely.
The other aspect that you won't miss is the 'Kiasu' attitude. Loosely translated it's the 'me first' way of thinking. So if you think Singaporeans would be polite to you and help you out to get something faster than him, ah well...think again !
Saturday, April 09, 2011
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Saturday, January 09, 2010
Let the world win - The OZ problem.
Our external affairs minister perhaps almost got to the root of the Ind-Aus problem when he asked a serious question the other day.'Why do our students go to Australia for frivolous courses like facial/hairstyling ? They can be done here in India a lot better.'
I am in Australia on work at a time when both Countries & countrymen are seriously looking at each other & trading a barrage of comments everyday, often through a haplessly TRP crazy Indian media.I had a very lively discussion on this issue with some of my permanent Australian resident friends who got here about 6 years back as students & then settled for good in OZ land.
Coming back to the facial/hairstyling thing,the big idea is this. No one who comes here for a facial/hairstyling course comes do learn the tricks of this trade. He comes with a bigger motive - Settling down in Australia. A liberal PR path that most of the western nations lack makes OZ a big attraction for Indians. And once one person of the family makes his way here, a lot more follow. So where does the problem lie ? The problem lies in what I call the 'law of increasing numbers'. When the number of people engaged in a particular activity shoots over the roof,quality of ppl doing it automatically comes down. It happened with Indian IT,it's happening with OZ migration. My friend remembers the few Indian classmates he used to have when he joined college here. They were smart & classy.They knew the big idea 'When in Rome,do as the Romans do'. The crowd that comes in today doesn't even know where Rome is.
I have not traveled to Melbourne yet, but that's the place most of the incidents occurring are being reported from. And the victims are more students than working Indians.One of my friends frequently travels to Melbourne & he told me that he was amazed at the sheer number of Indians in Melbourne, a figure that's increasing every day. And he was amazed at the way most of them behave in public places - 'Paaji,tussi kaise ho !!!!!! ' goes a guy in full pitch at a public park. He tells me that when he had come in, he doesn't even remember speaking to anyone in the first 4-5 months,anxious to learn the new culture & their ways before committing anything stupid.
Australia is a far liberal nation than India,even America for that matter. And to see problems in Australia with the same prism as we see problems in India is not correct. And perhaps it's this liberalism & openness to various cultures which leads to such a PR regime here. I do agree that any country encouraging migration should also think about ways to integrate them into the mainstream culture. Australia does this in a pretty nice way,the ongoing Sydney festival in which A R Rahman too is staging a concert is a testimony to this. But then there are limits to what a Country/Govt can do, especially in a bad economy. Historically crimes have always increased during a recession. Indian media would do a lot good if it also projected incidents like this & this when airing news.
It's a fact that crimes rates are high in cities these days & it's important that people irrespective of nationalities take care & precaution.If we ensure in most Indian cities that girls & kids who are easy targets of violence are not alone at night on the road,we have to do a bit of the same for ourselves when abroad.I agree that India is a developing nation, but then we shouldn't expect the western world to be picture perfect to the last pixel.
At the same time, while trying to assimilate into the melting pot in a foreign land , it's important that we adjust ourselves to their culture, their way of dressing & quite figuratively,start speaking their language in whatever we do. If hatred can grow in Marathis seeing lot of Indians working & flourishing in Mumbai, the same rules might apply for a section of ppl in alien lands. Remember, we as Indians have to aid & contribute to the growth & flourishment of other cultures, not make them change to our own.
I always wondered while I was in India, why the older Ind residents in Aus never came out in support of the students who were demonstrating. I asked my friends this question & had to agree with his response to some extent. All that is going around is becoming hugely detrimental to the Indian community here. Except for the students, almost everyone would suffer. My friend's marriage is a big question now cos no Dad wants to send his daughter to Sydney,Melbourne.The fact notwithstanding that both cities have consistently ranked in Economist mag's top 10 cities in the world. Even the married ones are not happy. Things are not the same when they call back home,everyone's worried though not much has changed for them in day to day life. Less people coming to Australia from India would mean bad business for Indians who run Indian restaurants/groceries & other India centric businesses abroad.
To conclude, we all (Indian media included)have to understand that in the new century, if someone has to win, it's the World.And I mean the world together.Not India, not Australia, not America,not China. India needs to give the world it's rich learnings in understanding life & the world needs to give India the methodologies it invented to take life to the next level. Let's collectively sit,identify & solve problems that are cropping up in this age of globalisation & migration across continents.
Let the world win !
I am in Australia on work at a time when both Countries & countrymen are seriously looking at each other & trading a barrage of comments everyday, often through a haplessly TRP crazy Indian media.I had a very lively discussion on this issue with some of my permanent Australian resident friends who got here about 6 years back as students & then settled for good in OZ land.
Coming back to the facial/hairstyling thing,the big idea is this. No one who comes here for a facial/hairstyling course comes do learn the tricks of this trade. He comes with a bigger motive - Settling down in Australia. A liberal PR path that most of the western nations lack makes OZ a big attraction for Indians. And once one person of the family makes his way here, a lot more follow. So where does the problem lie ? The problem lies in what I call the 'law of increasing numbers'. When the number of people engaged in a particular activity shoots over the roof,quality of ppl doing it automatically comes down. It happened with Indian IT,it's happening with OZ migration. My friend remembers the few Indian classmates he used to have when he joined college here. They were smart & classy.They knew the big idea 'When in Rome,do as the Romans do'. The crowd that comes in today doesn't even know where Rome is.
I have not traveled to Melbourne yet, but that's the place most of the incidents occurring are being reported from. And the victims are more students than working Indians.One of my friends frequently travels to Melbourne & he told me that he was amazed at the sheer number of Indians in Melbourne, a figure that's increasing every day. And he was amazed at the way most of them behave in public places - 'Paaji,tussi kaise ho !!!!!! ' goes a guy in full pitch at a public park. He tells me that when he had come in, he doesn't even remember speaking to anyone in the first 4-5 months,anxious to learn the new culture & their ways before committing anything stupid.
Australia is a far liberal nation than India,even America for that matter. And to see problems in Australia with the same prism as we see problems in India is not correct. And perhaps it's this liberalism & openness to various cultures which leads to such a PR regime here. I do agree that any country encouraging migration should also think about ways to integrate them into the mainstream culture. Australia does this in a pretty nice way,the ongoing Sydney festival in which A R Rahman too is staging a concert is a testimony to this. But then there are limits to what a Country/Govt can do, especially in a bad economy. Historically crimes have always increased during a recession. Indian media would do a lot good if it also projected incidents like this & this when airing news.
It's a fact that crimes rates are high in cities these days & it's important that people irrespective of nationalities take care & precaution.If we ensure in most Indian cities that girls & kids who are easy targets of violence are not alone at night on the road,we have to do a bit of the same for ourselves when abroad.I agree that India is a developing nation, but then we shouldn't expect the western world to be picture perfect to the last pixel.
At the same time, while trying to assimilate into the melting pot in a foreign land , it's important that we adjust ourselves to their culture, their way of dressing & quite figuratively,start speaking their language in whatever we do. If hatred can grow in Marathis seeing lot of Indians working & flourishing in Mumbai, the same rules might apply for a section of ppl in alien lands. Remember, we as Indians have to aid & contribute to the growth & flourishment of other cultures, not make them change to our own.
I always wondered while I was in India, why the older Ind residents in Aus never came out in support of the students who were demonstrating. I asked my friends this question & had to agree with his response to some extent. All that is going around is becoming hugely detrimental to the Indian community here. Except for the students, almost everyone would suffer. My friend's marriage is a big question now cos no Dad wants to send his daughter to Sydney,Melbourne.The fact notwithstanding that both cities have consistently ranked in Economist mag's top 10 cities in the world. Even the married ones are not happy. Things are not the same when they call back home,everyone's worried though not much has changed for them in day to day life. Less people coming to Australia from India would mean bad business for Indians who run Indian restaurants/groceries & other India centric businesses abroad.
To conclude, we all (Indian media included)have to understand that in the new century, if someone has to win, it's the World.And I mean the world together.Not India, not Australia, not America,not China. India needs to give the world it's rich learnings in understanding life & the world needs to give India the methodologies it invented to take life to the next level. Let's collectively sit,identify & solve problems that are cropping up in this age of globalisation & migration across continents.
Let the world win !
Sunday, November 22, 2009
My dreams for my country :)
I am 26 now.I guess it's kind of a right age to look a bit more into the future of my country. So I thought I'll pen down some things that I would love to see changed when I am 50, that's some 25 years from now.
Ok, first the caveat :) This post would be largely urban in nature.That means that it won't cover my dream for the rural masses of my country.That's a subject I would like to tackle in an altogether different post. So all those ppl who want to say that it is not 'all inclusive', well...it is not meant to be so :). So relax & read.
My first dream starts from an Airport. Cos that's one place I have been frequenting too much in the last couple of years.And most of them across continents,North America, Europe, Australia & Asia. In 25 years I dream that most of the people who would be seated in the business class & first class lounges should be Indian. When the first call from the airline comes for priority boarding for business class passengers, I want to see most of the Indians getting into the plane. It sounds very simple an idea, but think about it & you'll get a bigger picture.
I would like to see our cities becoming more friendly to people living in it. In short I want to see at least a couple of our cities getting into the Economist magazine's top 10 liveable cities list. If I could dream a bit more, I'll love to see at least 5 brand new world class cities being created from scratch, with lots of parks, lots of libraries, strict building regulations,great city services like water,drainage etc, efficient public transportation & yes,ones that are more child & pedestrian friendly.
I dream of the air becoming more breathable in our cities. India going ahead & accepting for itself stricter regulations than that being proposed by the world for climate change. A separate efficient govt body to regulate & monitor carbon emissions & companies themselves becoming more conscious about carbon. Why, I would also love to see Indian firms selling carbon credits to other nations !
25 years down the lane, I want to live in an Indian city where I can fearlessly open any tap in my house and gulp down the water to quench my thirst. I want to live in a city where I can throw open all my windows & sleep peacefully without the fear of robbers or mosquitoes.
The list can be endless of course, but then dreams have to end & one has to wake up :) So the last one would be to see all my country men leave office sharp at 5 every day to get to enjoy their time with their families. I want to see working moms & dads playing with their kids when I take out a jog in the evening around 6. I want to see working families going for weekend holidays & spending time with each other, cracking jokes & of course dreaming about a still better, still prosperous India.
Ok, first the caveat :) This post would be largely urban in nature.That means that it won't cover my dream for the rural masses of my country.That's a subject I would like to tackle in an altogether different post. So all those ppl who want to say that it is not 'all inclusive', well...it is not meant to be so :). So relax & read.
My first dream starts from an Airport. Cos that's one place I have been frequenting too much in the last couple of years.And most of them across continents,North America, Europe, Australia & Asia. In 25 years I dream that most of the people who would be seated in the business class & first class lounges should be Indian. When the first call from the airline comes for priority boarding for business class passengers, I want to see most of the Indians getting into the plane. It sounds very simple an idea, but think about it & you'll get a bigger picture.
I would like to see our cities becoming more friendly to people living in it. In short I want to see at least a couple of our cities getting into the Economist magazine's top 10 liveable cities list. If I could dream a bit more, I'll love to see at least 5 brand new world class cities being created from scratch, with lots of parks, lots of libraries, strict building regulations,great city services like water,drainage etc, efficient public transportation & yes,ones that are more child & pedestrian friendly.
I dream of the air becoming more breathable in our cities. India going ahead & accepting for itself stricter regulations than that being proposed by the world for climate change. A separate efficient govt body to regulate & monitor carbon emissions & companies themselves becoming more conscious about carbon. Why, I would also love to see Indian firms selling carbon credits to other nations !
25 years down the lane, I want to live in an Indian city where I can fearlessly open any tap in my house and gulp down the water to quench my thirst. I want to live in a city where I can throw open all my windows & sleep peacefully without the fear of robbers or mosquitoes.
The list can be endless of course, but then dreams have to end & one has to wake up :) So the last one would be to see all my country men leave office sharp at 5 every day to get to enjoy their time with their families. I want to see working moms & dads playing with their kids when I take out a jog in the evening around 6. I want to see working families going for weekend holidays & spending time with each other, cracking jokes & of course dreaming about a still better, still prosperous India.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Desire to serve.
I recently happened to visit the Railway reservation counter to get a 'Tatkal' ticket. For people who don't know, 'Tatkal' is a system of ticketing in which tickets can be obtained for a journey just 5 days before the travel by paying a higher premium.The 'normal' railway tickets in India usually get over lot earlier.
The 'Tatkal' system works quite efficiently. The booking starts sharp at 8 AM nationwide at booking counters and normally tickets get over by 8.10/8.15 AM.
My visit was to the booking counter at Alappuzha, a town in central Kerala.Fresh from my US visit and anticipating a huge crowd, I was dot on my timelines. Ireached the counter by 7 AM only to be greeted by closed gates of the building. But as I had guessed, soon about 50 people joined the queue behind those closed gates. I had nothing to worry as I was still standing first in the supposedly FIFO queue.Or so I thought.
The gates opened around 7.50 and before I even got ready to make a move into the building, almost everyone behind me was gone ! Yes, they were all running into the building in what was supposedly the 'next queue' ...this one, the more real one - The one at the booking counter itself. I suddenly realised the heightened necessity to unlearn a lot of my recent learnings in the US. And the need to do that a lot faster.
It was almost sure that I won't get a ticket for my journey this time as almost 30 ppl were in front of me.A processing time of 1 min per person would make it 30 mins.But then I had nothing better to do going back home, so I gave it a try. And stood there 31st in the queue, alert of course at what's happening around me this time around.
The person responsible for issuing those tickets came in at 7.55. A young chap in his early twenties.He went inside , booted up the computer and readied himself for the task that was to start in the next 5 mins.
The clock struck 8 and I saw something very strange happening.The guy's turnaround time for each person was less than 10 seconds.I was getting amazed at the speed , in fact a bit jealous as I was damn sure that I could ne'er manage to operate a computer faster than that.I reached the counter before 8.04 and told my destination, date of journey and handed the booking request slip with my name on it. As I began to take out the cash, he was already asking the next guy his destination. And that's when the whole big idea struck me !
He was not taking money at all. He was just putting a block on the tickets and asking the person to move out of the queue so that he can block tickets for the next guy. You should have seen the sheer speed of his operating the computer, he had done the job even before you could complete telling the date of your journey.
The entire crowd was served in under 10 minutes.That was the need of the hour too as the tickets would have gotten over in another 5 mins anyways.
Then he started slowly calling out each person & started printing tickets one by one after taking cash at leisure. Brilliant ! I couldn't but marvel at his desire to serve and the method with which he optimised the entire process. The 'tatkal' system itself was devised as a process improvement method coupled with the idea of eliminating brokers/middlemen by having a uniform 8 AM reservation system.But needless to say, when sound processes get coupled with efficient people, results can be awesome.
I have to admit here that it's also a little bit of Indian ingenuity. It's very difficult to imagine such a thing happening anywhere else in the world.
The 'Tatkal' system works quite efficiently. The booking starts sharp at 8 AM nationwide at booking counters and normally tickets get over by 8.10/8.15 AM.
My visit was to the booking counter at Alappuzha, a town in central Kerala.Fresh from my US visit and anticipating a huge crowd, I was dot on my timelines. Ireached the counter by 7 AM only to be greeted by closed gates of the building. But as I had guessed, soon about 50 people joined the queue behind those closed gates. I had nothing to worry as I was still standing first in the supposedly FIFO queue.Or so I thought.
The gates opened around 7.50 and before I even got ready to make a move into the building, almost everyone behind me was gone ! Yes, they were all running into the building in what was supposedly the 'next queue' ...this one, the more real one - The one at the booking counter itself. I suddenly realised the heightened necessity to unlearn a lot of my recent learnings in the US. And the need to do that a lot faster.
It was almost sure that I won't get a ticket for my journey this time as almost 30 ppl were in front of me.A processing time of 1 min per person would make it 30 mins.But then I had nothing better to do going back home, so I gave it a try. And stood there 31st in the queue, alert of course at what's happening around me this time around.
The person responsible for issuing those tickets came in at 7.55. A young chap in his early twenties.He went inside , booted up the computer and readied himself for the task that was to start in the next 5 mins.
The clock struck 8 and I saw something very strange happening.The guy's turnaround time for each person was less than 10 seconds.I was getting amazed at the speed , in fact a bit jealous as I was damn sure that I could ne'er manage to operate a computer faster than that.I reached the counter before 8.04 and told my destination, date of journey and handed the booking request slip with my name on it. As I began to take out the cash, he was already asking the next guy his destination. And that's when the whole big idea struck me !
He was not taking money at all. He was just putting a block on the tickets and asking the person to move out of the queue so that he can block tickets for the next guy. You should have seen the sheer speed of his operating the computer, he had done the job even before you could complete telling the date of your journey.
The entire crowd was served in under 10 minutes.That was the need of the hour too as the tickets would have gotten over in another 5 mins anyways.
Then he started slowly calling out each person & started printing tickets one by one after taking cash at leisure. Brilliant ! I couldn't but marvel at his desire to serve and the method with which he optimised the entire process. The 'tatkal' system itself was devised as a process improvement method coupled with the idea of eliminating brokers/middlemen by having a uniform 8 AM reservation system.But needless to say, when sound processes get coupled with efficient people, results can be awesome.
I have to admit here that it's also a little bit of Indian ingenuity. It's very difficult to imagine such a thing happening anywhere else in the world.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Sharing my experiences !
There are few things as humbling as speaking at your own Alma mater.
Here speaking at the same seminar hall where I used to sit and listen to speakers about 5 years ago.A fulfilling experience.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Brilliant use of lathe - 800 years ago !
Lathe carved pillars at the Somnathpura temple, about 30 kms from Mysore. A temple with very different architecture.
A subtle thing about leadership.
There is this strange thing about leadership which I am experiencing first hand over some time now.Whenever someone becomes a leader or assumes a leadership role, he unconsciously moves into an orbit that's one notch higher than that of his followers.
This normally helps the leader in gaining a natural psychological edge over his followers thus helping him/her a lot in creating a dedicated team that seeks to understand & follow the leader. But in the process it also creates a line of separation that gets increasing difficult to erase as days pass by.
You can see this happening almost everywhere. Take the armed forces/police as an example.It almost creates a line of separation between the ranks as a part of the process. It helps in having a strong command over lower ranks but it is highly detrimental when it comes to helping the officer in understanding the problems faced by his juniors.
Take a school/college. The staff seldom use the same facilities as that of the students. Be it buses or washrooms. Most of them even have a staff canteen thus essentially shielding them from the problems that they are supposed to fix.
No better example than politicians. The surface transport minister gets the traffic cleared whenever he moves. He is in a different league & so miseries of normal people on the road becomes increasingly difficult for him to grasp.
A software firm is no exception. Except for the non-routine team meet,you'll seldom find a senior executive dining with his juniors as a practice. Everyone prefers to move around in crowds that's his or her own league. Even if there is that exceptional leader who actually makes a conscious effort to break the routine, it's highly possible that the conversations that takes place in his presence are very different from the ones that would have taken place in his absence.
It's a very fine balancing act.Once you get higher credentials, it's very difficult to maintain your feet at the same level as those of the people you lead. And unless you do that, it might actually be difficult to know their real issues and problems. The saddest thing is that it's actually the leader who is mostly empowered to make a change to fix those issues.More so in a highly hierarchical society like India.
I got a feel of this firsthand when I went to take a short session for my juniors in college recently. The look on their faces told me that they were all highly inquisitive about what actually happens in the Industry. I was just left wondering at the end of the day whether I would have done a better job if I had been just another student amongst them and talked impromptu one fine day.It took me a lot of effort to make them realise that I was just another guy as them and they need not look upto me as a 'Senior' who passed out of the college a while back. Though I did manage to do a decent job at the session, my doubts were best confirmed by the use of 'Sir' to address me by almost all of them till the end of the program :)
This normally helps the leader in gaining a natural psychological edge over his followers thus helping him/her a lot in creating a dedicated team that seeks to understand & follow the leader. But in the process it also creates a line of separation that gets increasing difficult to erase as days pass by.
You can see this happening almost everywhere. Take the armed forces/police as an example.It almost creates a line of separation between the ranks as a part of the process. It helps in having a strong command over lower ranks but it is highly detrimental when it comes to helping the officer in understanding the problems faced by his juniors.
Take a school/college. The staff seldom use the same facilities as that of the students. Be it buses or washrooms. Most of them even have a staff canteen thus essentially shielding them from the problems that they are supposed to fix.
No better example than politicians. The surface transport minister gets the traffic cleared whenever he moves. He is in a different league & so miseries of normal people on the road becomes increasingly difficult for him to grasp.
A software firm is no exception. Except for the non-routine team meet,you'll seldom find a senior executive dining with his juniors as a practice. Everyone prefers to move around in crowds that's his or her own league. Even if there is that exceptional leader who actually makes a conscious effort to break the routine, it's highly possible that the conversations that takes place in his presence are very different from the ones that would have taken place in his absence.
It's a very fine balancing act.Once you get higher credentials, it's very difficult to maintain your feet at the same level as those of the people you lead. And unless you do that, it might actually be difficult to know their real issues and problems. The saddest thing is that it's actually the leader who is mostly empowered to make a change to fix those issues.More so in a highly hierarchical society like India.
I got a feel of this firsthand when I went to take a short session for my juniors in college recently. The look on their faces told me that they were all highly inquisitive about what actually happens in the Industry. I was just left wondering at the end of the day whether I would have done a better job if I had been just another student amongst them and talked impromptu one fine day.It took me a lot of effort to make them realise that I was just another guy as them and they need not look upto me as a 'Senior' who passed out of the college a while back. Though I did manage to do a decent job at the session, my doubts were best confirmed by the use of 'Sir' to address me by almost all of them till the end of the program :)
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