India Rocks

Today while talking to my friend, we came to discussing why do people stick on for so long in big Indian Software Service companies. Why is getting stuck in big Indian Software companies bad? Well if you are a developer worth your salt, there is no way these companies will ever appreciate your creative talents, because for them the product is the result of a process, not the result of smart people. Thus the probability of you working with smart people in these companies is remote. And in my consideration of a good workplace, smart colleagues is one of the most important factors, if not THE most important.

So really, why does a person continue to work in an environment that has no reward for his/her creativity? I think one of the reasons is that we as Indians are always taught to be normal, average, not extra ordinary. Your parents tell you to get a haircut if your hair are too long? Why? because it doesn't look good. Why doesn't it look good? because its not what everyone else has. No school exams really test how creative we are, all that they care about is whether we know something or not. This overall creates a sense in us that doing anything that others aren't doing is probably foolish. Follow your instinct is an advice very few kids get from their parents in India.

Hence our desire to satisfy our creative urges gets stifled over years and years of being "like everyone else". Thus we continue to work in cheap labor shops, because we don't have an inner hunger to satisfy. Because for us, money matters, things matter, but doing our own thing?? whats that. I do whatever Vikram, Ajay and Shilpa are doing. All of them cant be doing something wrong.

It just makes me wonder whether schooling and education in India is a good thing? Maybe we need some deschooling to save our creative cells from dieing a slow death. Maybe kids need to be taught, that parents aren't always right. Maybe then we will have a future where being different is being normal :)