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 :)

The resilient mumbaikar is known all over the world. He struggles in local trains everyday, struggles for a roof over his head. He's seen blasts, riots, murders and the small matter of a deluge. But still he goes on, going about his job in manner that almost borders on being robotic.
As serial blasts rocked the very lifeline of this resilient city, the mumbaikar again rose to the challenge. He helped in getting the dead bodies to mortuaries, the injured to the hospital, while the administration failed him again. His family harrowedly watched news channels for his sight as the multi crore phone line screeched to a halt again in the face of crisis. In all this craze, in all this madness, in this poignant time, you felt that maybe, just maybe we shouldn't be this resilient. Maybe we should show the world that Yes!!, it hurts, and hurts bad.

Perhaps for once the world wouldn't say, "Yeah its bad!! But Mumbai will get over this!!"No we cant we just cant get over this. We have gone through this time and again and for once it will not be OK. Everyday we see scores getting killed on these tracks and yet we move on. We suffer in the rains, we suffer on the trains but still we hang on. But there is a limit. We just cant take it anymore. We just don't want to be told "Everything will be alright!".We want something done. We want to feel secure for once, we want to be able to breath comfortably for a second. Reassurance just wont cut it anymore.

We earn the most capital for this country and what do we get in return? Bloody reassurance. Now its time for us to show that no!!, everything wont be alright till its set right. We refuse to be taken for granted. We refuse to take this lying down and move on. As for resilience, to hell with it!!!