The Indian English Media

This is going to be a long post.
For the past couple of years I have been observing the English news channels in television and also online portals such as rediff.com and IndiaTimes.com. A pattern emerges, but I wonder about the causal factors for news reporting in India.

Two Recent Campaigns

The IPL move to South Africa and Tata Nano's launch are two cases in point. To any dispassionate observer watching the news reporting, it must be obvious that the media went nuts with both. They hysterically covered Tata Nano's launch so much that it seemed Tata needed no additional marketing. One reporter, self-reighteously asked Tata what he would say to Mamata Bannerjee, as if Mamata's campaign was somehow against the Nano (it was not). Tata, of course, is a businessman; even though the media tried to project him as a warrior against politics in this country, he knew his place. So he just said "Good afternoon". But that statement was enough for the media to interpret as some kind of witty come back to the evil Mamata.
On the two days following the Nano's launch, rediff had a total of 39 stories on the launch. Many of these did not read like news - it was as if Tata had paid rediff, Indiatimes and all those English television channels.

At around the same time, the IPL controversy was gathering momentum. On the day IPL decided to move out of India, rediff publishes the following lead-up to a discussion forum: http://cricket.rediff.com/report/2009/mar/22/ipl-message-board.htm
That particular article has to be read to be believed. A basic journalistic standard is to clearly show the difference between editorializing (expressing opinion) and news reporting. This helps readers understand that what you are talking about may not be facts, but your own opinion.
The above article blurs that distinction and presents the IPL organizer point of view as if it is objective fact. It does it through some standard tricks - such as omitting quotation marks from quotes.

While the government did not want to take chances with the security after the attack by gunmen on Sri Lankan cricketers in Lahore [Images], it also lost a lot of revenue and a chance to show that the country is a safe place to host sports events, keeping in mind next year's Commonwealth Games [Images].

The BCCI also apologised to fans, saying the government had left them with no other option. It made it clear that a lot of money was at stake and the Board along with the franchises and broadcasters could not afford to lose so much.
...
Who do you blame for depriving Indian fans of the high-octane action in the IPL, which was a mega success in its first year?

At first glance it seems as if rediff is doing this violation of ethical journalism so that they can support the BJP.
In both these news stories, the media went overboard, with the English TV channel's 24 hour coverage of the Nano. Watching the pathetic emptyheads on television cheerleading for a car, we can easily blame them for being without substance. It is clear that in both these cases, the media is forcing a certain narrative down the throats of viewers. The question is why they do that.

What is at Stake
In India media criticism is rare, but before I make a case I have to explain what is at stake here. After watching decades of doctored news from outlets like the Tamil Sun Television or Jaya Television, it is natural for us to assume that the media, like any other institution can report whatever they deem as news. At least that is what they say.
The Corporatised media needs to earn money, true. But we should not forget that a honest press is one of the pillars of democracy. They have responsibilities to the public beyond earning money. They have strict ethical guidelines for news reporting.
More than anything, the press enjoys a host of benefits from the government. A member of the press enjoys access to high officials and is definitely more powerful than an ordinary citizen.
Without a free press that is not acting as a tool for the rich and powerful, we may as well call off our democracy experiment. People curse politicians all the time and celebrate corporations as repositories of all that is good and benevolent. But we ought to be cursing our corporate media too, for letting down the majority people's interests.
Having said that let us analyze two views for the corruption of media.

Ezra Klein and the Media Narrative- A Charitable View
There is a charitable view we can take about the media behavior. That is explained in this classic post by Ezra Klein, a leading liberal blogger in the USA. Klein was talking about the nature of the American media, but it applies here too (emphasis mine):

I think one aspect of the modern press that doesn't get enough attention -- either among folks in the media or folks critiquing it -- is the transition from the fundamental scarcity being information to information being in abundance and the fundamental scarcity being mediation.
...
If everyone got a newspaper once a day, and there were eight political stories, and all of them were different each day, and one of them had pointed out that Palin actually did support the Bridge to Nowhere, then the press would indeed have done its job. The job was to report the story, and they reported it.

But cable news and blogs and radio sort of changed all that and now there's too much information, and so consumers largely rely on the press to arrange that information into some sort of coherent story that will allow them to understand the election. And the press assumed that role -- they didn't create some new institution, or demand that the cable channels be credentialed differently and understood as "political entertainment."

They fill this new role through the methods storytellers have always used to tell stories: the repetition of certain key themes and characters, which creates continuity between one day's events and the next and helps the audience understand which parts to pay attention to. It's sort of like a TV show:

In the case of the Nano, it was obvious from the first that there was a narrative here - a businessman is let down by powerful, evil politicians such as Mamta Bannerjee. He takes his show and leaves for the arms of another, more business-savvy leader (Narendra Modi). And he finally releases his car thereby satisfying the dreams of millions.
The press chose this narrative and ran with it, even though there were big holes in the story - for example, Tata had an private agreement with the Communist government in West Bengal for land transfer in Singur. If he was so noble, he would never have tried to go for such a deal. Secondly, during the entire controversy, Tata himself never expressed any antipathy to a deal with the politicians - he knew that he needed them as they need him.
Thirdly, Tata's cars in Gujarat are now heavily subsidized by the tax payer. There are estimates that Rs.50,000 to 60,000 of each Nano is borne by the tax payer. If Tata was a people's hero, he would never have tried to wrestle such concessions from elected governments. Gujarat has literally bribed a single businessman enormously to base his plant in their state.
This is transparently not capitalism, but the media thought the narrative was powerful. The same narrative idea holds for the IPL, where Lalit Modi was the new brave warrior against government.
So, it is entirely possible that the Indian corporate media is simply building these narratives and presenting well-packaged stories to the Indian public (even though they are violating news standards) - because that has become their job in this age of "too much information".
But then there is another possibility.

The Indian Media and Elitism
We should note that every narrative the media builds somehow enables and enriches private business elite. I suspect that the IPL controversy made the private business elite go crazy because government seemed to be saying that business was not the most important thing in the world. They screamed about lost revenue for the government - if government's purpose is only revenue making we should probably rent out Parliament House in the summer.
But over the past few years there is a strong streak of class warfare in our media. It is clear that the media tries to suggest the following:
1. Government should be run like a business
2. Any government "inteference" to regulate the private business world is a travesty of capitalism.
3. The interests of everyone in India is closely allied with the interests of business people
4. Businessmen are noble
During the IPL auction, which they feverishly covered, the media stars declared "What Recession?" because the amounts in the auction were astronomical. Meanwhile ordinary construction workers were facing the recession alright. In fact everyone was feeling the recession probably except for the narrow band that the media glorifies. P.Sainath wrote an excellent article on this elitist coverage here.
I am not sure how much the media has succeeded in this myth creation - reality, like the Satyam fiasco, kind of tends to expose their stars for what they are.
But it seems to me that the media is performing this dance around private business because their own corporate masters see what we all see - that in India the business class has an excellent opportunity to suppress a class struggle. It never fully worked in the developed countries, but they see an opportunity here.
This is why I reject the view that the media is directly paid by Tata or Lalit Modi to do their marketing. It is more subtle than that. They get access and power and form an alliance that blurs the real issues at stake in modern India.
They think they have formed a heady concoction using Cricket stars, Bollywood's talentless tarts and "lifestyle" issues.
I got a glimpse into their inner workings in an article by Tehelka editor, Tarun Tejpal, 3 weeks after the Mumbai attacks. In that article, Mr.Tejpal talks about a media consultant who lost his life at the Taj. But he also talks about what these consultants advise - they apparently guide media corporations towards such "lifestyle" issues and meaningless trivia in news. They think this is what the public is asking for. This is why your local newspaper publishes a lifestyle section with unrelated stuff about Paris Hilton and Brad Pitt.

As a more interesting note, corporatization seems to have directly caused this abuse of power and a complete corruption of journalistic ideals. So much for the glory of private business and businessmen...

As much as we hate politicians, we have as much to fear from the corruption of this new monster in the block.

Is Hindi Film Music in a Renaissance?

Short post - but it seems like Hindi film music is going through an amazing resurgence the last few years. I don't know what is the cause of it...if it is the increasing number of fresh music directors; or the music talent shows sparking a renewed interest; or the influence of Pakistani bands. But I am hearing more and more sweet and well-sung numbers. Most movies now come with a Sufi style song (and an item song, which is another matter).
I have a few personal favorites, such as:
Mitwa from Kabhi Alvidha Na Kehna
Dil De Diya Hai from Masti
In Dino Dil Mera from Life In a Metro
Jab Se Tere Naina from Saawariya
Aaoge Jab Tum Saajna from Jab We Met
Aaj Ki Raat from Don
Woh Lamhe from Zeher


"In dino dil mera" rendered by Debojit Datta in Zee SaReGaMaPa (starting 1:20)


At the same time I am worried about the Tamil music industry. Harris Jayaraj or Yuvan Shankar Raja are pale substitutes for giants such as Ilayaraja and Rahman. Yuvan still has off key singing in his songs. They are going wholesale Western without any attempt at fusion. It is disappointing and it would be nice if we have another music director of the calibre of Ilayaraja...

Indian attitudes to Science Education

My early exposure to science was not very good. We had a bad science teacher from 6th std to 8th std. No practicals, but lots of chanting in the class room. He taught Newton's third law by singing. "Action and Reaction are Equal and Opposite", he sang and asked all of us to join in. We had no idea what action or reaction was. But we joined in the chant because he beat you if you did not shout loud enough. Now, that has left me with a lifelong scar - I still hear the singsong in my mind when I read about Newton or watch rockets taking off - "Action and Reaction are Equal and Opposite".
Later in my life I took Physics at college and attended an interview in IIT Madras for Master's in Physics. They asked me how a bottle rested on a table. And I answered that the force of gravity on the bottle was balanced by the opposite reaction on the table. It was a wrong answer, because although action and reaction are equal and opposite they act on different bodies. They made fun of me for some time for that. It was sad that the teacher who taught me Newton's laws was more interested in singing than on the actual meaning of the laws.
The way science was taught was the way Thirukkural (Tamil poem) was taught. We all dreaded Thirukkural at school, particularly in the 10th std because they had fifty of them as "manappaada paattu" meaning we had to know them by heart for the examinations. In the examination, we were asked inane questions like this - "Write the Kural that ends with 'Arivu'". And we would all be looking at each other and mouthing the kurals at the examination.
This, of course, ruined all interest in Thirukkural for all of us - it was seen as one of the peculiar torture mechanisms preferred by adults.
Newton's laws were taught almost in the same fashion. If there were lots of laws by Newton, they would have asked us "Reproduce the Newton's law that ends in 'Opposite'" and we would all be staring at each other. As it is, in exams they asked us to write the laws verbatim.
What saved me, from a lifelong hatred of the exact sciences, was the books at my home that my father bought. One of these books was called "In the Name of Science". I don't remember the author.
That book talked about a peculiar problem that farmers faced in the 17th century. They could pump water using suction pumps but each pump could only push water to a height of 34 feet. So for a deep well, they needed multiple stages. This was a problem posed to Torricelli (I don't remember all the details). At that time there was this saying "Nature abhors a vacuum". If nature abhors a vacuum then a suction pump should be able to pump water to whatever height. Torricelli thought about this issue and had a key insight. What if air had weight? If air had weight and we are living under a ocean of air, then, Torricelli reasoned, probably the weight of 34 feet of water was all the entire atmospheric weight could sustain. (This is called now as atmospheric pressure). To prove that this is true, Torricelli chose a test tube full of mercury. Mercury was 13.6 times denser than water. So, in a meter long test tube, atmospheric pressure can only sustain around 2.5 feet of mercury. Torricelli tried to see if this was true and well, he found it was true and thereby created the first artificial vacuum. In the process he also invented the barometer.
This story was narrated in the book with beautiful illustrations. The book continued on into other experiments such as the one where 8 horses could not pull apart a vacuum sealed sphere.
This book caused my first interest in science and I looked for more such. My father bought a few Russian books; even a Tamil translated book on the Special theory of Relativity. I had no idea what they were talking about but read them anyway.
One of the Russian books talked about a experiment by Galileo. If you had a heavy object tied with a long string suspended from an axis, you have a pendulum. A pendulum swings back and forth and it has a time period and an amplitude. It is natural to suspect that if you pull a pendulum far enough and let it go, it will swing faster. Well, Galileo found that this assumption was wrong. The time period of a pendulum's swing ONLY depends on the length of the rope.

This was an experiment I could do - I got a rope, a iron ball and then tied to a nail and tried swinging at different points. I did not have a stop watch so I counted manually. It sure seemed Galileo was right, and I did not make any dramatic discovery that overruled Galileo.
Now, you would think that I went on to become a scientific whiz kid. Unfortunately, that is not what happened. This post is about why I did NOT become such a whiz kid.

The Examination System
While I kept trying to read about Astronomy, and tried to build my own telescope by stealing lenses from the school science lab, I still had no clue why I was doing all this. I wanted to observe the moon up close (I still have not done that). I took some chemicals from the school lab and tried to burn the house down. But I did all of these without knowledge of the scientific method and what it means. School should have taught me that, but instead they were giving lots of details about the chemical equation of Hydrogen Sulphide.

In 9th std, we got an excellent science teacher, finally. His first class (I still remember it) was a lecture on Pavlov and his dog. For those of you interested in this experiment, here is the wikipedia link.

In that lecture he explained the reflex actions that guided most animals and humans and the principle of classical conditioning. He quote from the dreaded Thirukkural - the poet says that men should share their food as even crows call each other when they see food. The teacher said that crows called out on seeing food out of reflex and not out of nobility. Otherwise they would not be fighting with each other when a couple of more crows reach the scene. This was the first time we actually had a science teacher lecturing anything. He just talked for 45 minutes, without referring to a book or dictating notes.
He taught us for 9th and 10th, and my liking of science grew a lot in those years. Yet, we were faced with a dilemma - his lectures were essentially useless to us, when you went to the examination and the questions went like "Define reflex action". You lose marks if you even swap words in the definition.
This is why, in spite of good teachers (and they are few) our examination system is royally messing with our heads.
Slowly, the examination system squeezes out any interest in the actual subject you may have. People blame religion for a lack of interest in science, but it is our own examinations that makes us lose interest.
When we got into high school and then later college, there were practical classes, in which you go into the lab and perform experiments. These sessions were made as dry and devoid of fun as possible. You needed to have an observation notebook. Then you had a practical notebook. The practical notebook was awarded points for neatness - it needed a brown paper cover and a label on top. Then each experiment had an objective and other sections. We all copied from each other and from seniors making the whole system worthless.
Again and again and again, we measure the refractive index of glass - we knew it was 1.5 by 9th std, but we had to perform experiments whose sole objective was to find out the refractive index of glass. We did not know why so many experiments were devised for finding something that everyone knew. This resulted in some "backhand work". In Physics lab there was an experiment called the Newton's Rings. It was complicated and hurt the eye and its purpose was - you got it - to find the refractive index of stupid glass. In my class, we devised a method by which we would sit at home and work out the 32 readings using a calculator which would result in the answer, 1.5. Someone took it too far and showed the answer to the professor without coming to class. Unfortunately, there was no electricity on that day and it is not possible to perform Newton's Rings without a powerful mercury lamp. He got caught.
We had a micro processor lab in engineering college. I always got into trouble with the professors because my "observation notebook" was not neat. It was a programming lab and I actually wrote the programs in the notebook. Why would my notebook be neat if I am trying out different assembly programs? Incredibly, in one of the electronic labs, the professor wanted to "discipline" us. The labs were more about discipline than having fun with electronics.

I blame the system utterly for making science education so meaningless. Even after three years of Physics I had no idea what the scientific method was. If someone had asked me the difference between the Renaissance or the Age of Reason, and the period preceding that I would have been unable to answer, even though I had a science education all my life. In fact, I bet most people reading this blog would have the same problem.

Indian Society and Science
Our society treats science the same way we treat all knowledge - it should be "received" and accepted without questioning. In the case of science, many educated Indians reject that it is a fundamental shift in looking at the world.
I had an argument about astrology with a couple of colleagues. One of them said that a long time back Indians had identified the planets as nine (nava graha) and that this was getting confirmed by modern science. I pointed out that the nava graha of Indian astrology included the Sun, the Moon, Raghu and Kedhu (eclipses). These are not planets. Raghu and Kedhu don't even exist. Thus Indians knew only the five visible planets that most of the ancient world knew.
I am not going to rant about astrology more here, but the key problem in Indian understanding of modern science is two-fold:
1. A belief that modern science is no different than ancient knowledge - that the means of acquiring it and the means of making new findings are similar to, say, alchemy.
2. A belief that modern science is somehow "western" and thus a patriotic rejection of its ideas.
This is why you see people insisting that the ancients knew about everything or an attempt to explain "scientifically" homams, yagams and so on.
There are also two other reasons for our rejection of scientific values:
1. An inferiority complex about being colonised causes us to be suspicious of giving "credit" to white people.
2. Our own "rational" movements have not helped the cause. They have called for a wholesale rejection of religion and examining every action through a rational prism. I think this is not practical - it is possible to acquire scientific knowledge and also accept religion. Our rational movements have started out on a crusade against any aspects of religion (meanwhile inventing their own religions, holy people and rituals). Most sociologists and psychologists accept a role of rituals, myths and legends in human life - rationalists are thus going against the spirit of science itself, in some ways.
My point is not in finding a middle ground between science and religion. I don't accept portraying them as opposing poles. They are in different dimensions and cater to different roles in human life.

The Scientific Method

Modern scientific method originated in Europe, with the works of Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. It is a specific event in human history. Even though we link it with the exact, "natural" sciences such as Physics or Biology, science includes all quest for knowledge, its synthesis and analysis. This quest, after the 16th century followed specific methods of hypothesis, empirical observations, theory formation, predictions, repeatable tests, and most importantly, peer review. This method is the defining change that has brought us all the progress of the past 4 centuries. Just as economic historians identify the explosion of capitalism as an event that started 3 centuries back, the advent of modern science is traced to the beginning of the 17th century.
This event happened in Western and Southern Europe. Historians trace the Renaissance to specific social conditions around the city of Florence, Italy. It spread to regions closest and then most of Europe, soon after. Simlarly the advent of the Age of Reason was caused by social conditions.
One key thing to note is that the scientists engaged in advancing the method were self-aware that they were part of a new age of human history.
We have to realize that the scientific method represents a clean break from the previous periods of human history and is a unique idea.
We ought to be proud of this "human" legacy - it is not a western legacy (in spite of all efforts by the West itself to take ownership).
One of the best ways to understand what science is, is to learn what science is not. There is a classic book by the mathematician, Martin Gardner called "Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science". This book defines pseudo science and covers several examples of it in a very interesting fashion. If our current Chief Minister or the media had read this book, they would not have run around with Ramar Pillai and his "Mooligai Petrol" 10 years back. Anandha Vikatan published an editorial calling "anti-Tamil" and "elitist" the professors in Delhi and Madras who rejected Ramar Pillai's work.
If, our education emphasized the role and the history of scientific method even a little bit, we can place ourselves in some context within scientific knowledge. We can distinguish it from alchemy and pseudo-science. Instead we have people hiding in homes with all curtains closed during a solar eclipse.

Couple of references to bloggers in television

Quick post - I heard a couple of references to bloggers in television recently.
1. A.R.Rahman mentioned the fans in the web who have been fighting a war between Ilayaraja and himself.
2. More curiously, there is a music talent show called Airtel Super Singer in Vijay TV. The voice trainer for the singers, Anant Vaidhyanathan, mentioned that one of the contestants, RaginiSri was upset that the bloggers were abusing her. He said, "What do they call it? Blogs?" and I felt a moment of pride. I have not written about the show, but I hope to hear more refernces to bloggers as opinion makers.

Speaking of English as a Medium

Almost once a week, the principal of the school near my home addresses her students and blames them for all her problems. I will write more about that later, but something caught my attention today about her "pulambal".
She said, "We will not tolerate coming late to school, talking in class, speaking in Tamil or behaving disobediently".
Yes, she clubbed speaking in Tamil along with all the other ills in her students' behavior.
Then I went to the beach in the evening and heard a couple next to me yelling and screaming in English with their 3 year old son. They were literally baby-talking to their kids in English. It was hilarious listening to the dad telling the son to "lick the chocolate, dude".
I would almost have a problem with these two incidents but both of them were illuminating for other reasons. It was not so much that the school principal was advising that talking in Tamil in school was a crime. Most of us are used to this - almost every private school has this rule and it exists for a reason (we will discuss that later).
But the school principal herself was talking really bad English.
She was saying things like this: "I don't know what I will do. I get too angry.."; " The teacher scolded me! How am I feel?" and so on.
I have listened to her closely and it is obvious that she is translating from Tamil to English in her mind. In fact I bet all their teachers do that.
The students whom these luminaries are training are no better: they generally talk street Tamil outside but occasionally lapse into "I like that only" kind of English.
The same holds true for the family in the beach. In spite of all their efforts to talk in English with their kids, I could tell it would not help. The dad had a really clumsy accent and his yelling "dude lick the chocolate" was not going to go far.
Here is the reason why talking in English to kids, and enforcing that even in casual talk, at school may not help - most of our English is bad (as in ungrammatical and clumsy) English. How do we expect that the same teachers at school, who teach bad Physics and bad Biology, and the teachers who are trained by our same useless educational system (we are better off calling it an examination system) - how do we expect them to suddenly teach English alone in an exemplary manner?
I have struggled to find why this English only rule is imposed in schools and why more and more parents talk in English to their kids. I have heard the explanation that it helps the kids' fluency when they grow up. I doubt that it does. The reason why we think that, is because we assume the people who are teaching English are good. We assume that the parents talk good English in the first place. Most of the time, both these parties do not know any better.
If learning a language fluently meant talking to kids exclusively in that language all his or her life, then they will grow up both unable to blend in India AND anywhere else.
What is the focus here? How much of immersion into a language will make a kid an "almost native speaker" of English? My point is that it is a futile quest. Just accept that we are Indians. we speak a different language natively and our educational system can only provide so much.
Instead, let me suggest an alternative.

Now we are getting to the positive part of this essay: I went to a government school. I got into a government engineering college and 70% of my classmates were from rural areas (I myself am from Tirunelveli, which is neither rural nor urban). Many of the guys and girls were getting an education in English for the first time in their lives. Not just that, some of them were the first people to pass tenth standard in their whole village.
Well, almost all of them are in the United States now. Some of them run companies there. They have been there for more than 10 years and talk and write better English than the school principal above or the retarded English only kids. How did this happen? Is it a miracle?
No - most humans with an IQ above 90 can pick up a language pretty easily if they are in an environment. Now, in my class, there were also kids who exclusively studied in English-only private schools. Looking back, I would not say they were particularly successful or smart. Both these groups did well enough.
Here is the thing we have missed in this craze - what helps a kid most is, I believe, a cross-cultural, cross-disciplinary knowledge - what they call a Renaissance education. Some of the most informed and smart students in my batch were actually rural and had a taste for modern Tamil literature. They used to read Jayakanthan, Sundara Ramasamy and so on. But better than that, they had a thirst for literature of any kind. One guy from rural Tanjore had Tagore's Gitanjali along with a translation of Manto's short stories in his hostel room. Well, he was the first guy who cleared GRE and went abroad.
The truth is this: purely from a practical perspective, a kid who grows up with an awareness of his immediate surroundings will adapt better to new cultures and will, in general, be smarter. I am assuming that every middle class and rich family wants their kids to be in the United States - and thus the push for English, rather than any literary merit they see in English. I may be wrong.
But if someone does want their kid or student to grow up to be able to work in an international environment (euphemism for American companies), then they may be better off exposing them to regional Indian literature and the arts, than try to talk to them in bad English all their youth. That is what my experience tells me and that is what I observe from people who grew up with me. It may seem a surprising result, I acknowledge that.
There is no gain made by pushing English down their kid's brain and blocking off access to all local languages - he or she is still either translating in their minds or are completely disconnected from their local environment, that they cannot attune to any other culture.

I could not resist wondering about some of the motivation for the insistence on English by parents and schools. I suspect there is another reason beyond "learning". See, here is what happened when we became independent - suddenly the poor had voting rights; legal rights; and access to an education. I think some of us just could not take that all distinction was lost between the chattering masses and the special "ones". Enter English-only schools. Enter parents talking to their kids only in English. At first, it was cute that a kid spoke words like "irritation". Soon it wore off and more urgency crept into the "classy" people. They now had to make the kids sound American. The quest goes on for that teeny weeny measure of distinctness from the trash surrounding us.

Worst Lyrics in Tamil Romantic songs

Me and Mr.Alla here were discussing movie lyrics and he wrote an excellent blog on Telugu Movie Song "Sahitya" (in Telugu everything sounds literary - I thought he was referring to Thyagaraja when he mentioned Sahitya). This is the Tamil counterpart.
Some of the worst lyrics in Tamil movies have been written in the last 10-15 year period. Earlier, there was Kannadasan and then initially Vairamithu wrote some excellent lyrics. Around the 80s, they started substituting random words in romantic songs, but it still sounded good.
Now, I am referring to romantic songs specifically here - Kuthu song lyrics have become better and better. For example the recently released Nathamukka song has the following lyrics:

பொண்ணுங்கல்லாம் பொறக்க வச்சான்
பொண்ணுக்குள்ள கருவ வச்சான்
கருவ வச்சான் கற்ப வச்சான்
கற்புக்குள்ள தீய வச்சான்
தீய வச்சு எரிய வச்சான்
எரிய வச்சான் எரிய வச்சான்
மதுரை எரியுது அணைங்கடா அணைங்கடா

Translation:

He created women and he put the womb inside them
He put the womb and he put chastity inside them
Inside chastity he put fire
He put the fire and he caused it to burn
he caused it to burn, he caused it to burn
And Madurai burns, let us put out the fire..

This is a reference to Kannagi burning Madurai, and it is woven in nicely into the breathless style of the song. (Lyricist P.V.Prasath)
Another really nice "Gaana" song was Vaala Meenukkum in the movie Chithiram Pesudhadi. It described a marriage ceremony celebrated by the different kinds of fish in the sea. Lyricist and performer was "Gaana" Ulaganathan.
(Gaana is a special Chennai inner city folk music that has lots of potential)

So, the Kuthu songs are fine and they satisfy their audience. It is the romantic songs that had really bad lyrics. The situation is changing with Thamarai, Naa>Muthikumar and others but check out some choice romantic lyrics from the last 10 years - just the ones that REALLY make you want to tear your hair.

Movie: Kaadhalan (Lover)
Lyricist: Vairamuthu (DiamondPearl)
Song: Yennavale Adi Yennavale
The hero Prabhu Deva is really taken with Nagma (she being the governor's daughter and him being jobless, sigh). He starts singing to her in his dreams. He really loves her and here is how some of the lyrics go:

காதல் என்றால் பெரும் அவஸ்தை என்று
உன்னை கண்டதும் கண்டு கொண்டேன்
எந்தன் கழுத்து வரை உந்தன் காதல் வந்து
(wait for it)
இரு கண் விழி பிதுங்கி நின்றேன்

Translation:

I saw you and I realized Love is a great pain
Your love has filled me till the neck and
I am standing with my eyeballs squeezed out

Now, right when I heard that I had an uncomfortable feeling in my eyes and it continues everytime because Unnikrishnan, the singer, insists on singing this in every concert.
But hold on, DiamondPearl goes on:

வாய்மொழியும் எந்தன் தாய் மொழியும் இன்று
வசப்பட இல்லையடி
வயிற்றுக்கும் தொண்டைக்கும் உருவமில்லா ஒரு
உருண்டையும் உருளுதடி

Translation:

Neither speech nor my language are under my control now
In between my stomach and my throat a formless sphere is rolling

Now, I don't know what is this formless sphere, but come on. The words Urundai (sphere) and Pidhungudhadi (squeezed out) in Tamil are really really not meant for romantic songs.
Whoever wants to have an image of eye baslls squeezing out while hearing a song?


Movie: Love Today (that is really the name of the movie; it was before the Tamil Nadu government started paying movie makers to name their movies in Tamil)
Lyricist: Vairamuthu
Song: Yen Pen Endru

Vijay is roaming around in despair because Suvalakshmi has not been reciprocating his love. He starts singing in a classic melody. This song is tuned beautifully and is a pleasure to hear until you reach this:

தூக்கத்தை தொலைத்தேனே துடிக்குது நெஞ்சம்
தலை போன சேவல் போல் தவிக்குது அங்கம்

Translation:

I lost my sleep and my heart is hurt
My body is twitching like a chicken whose head has been cut off

Seriously, this man...there is that image of a chicken running around with its head cut off.
Have pity on us.

Movie: Kannedhire Thondrinaal (She appeared before my eyes)
Lyricist: I don't know
Song: Kanave Kalayadhe

Great song, Prasanth and Simran are singing a duet. And here is the offending line:

இது வரை இதயத்தில் யாருமில்லை
சந்து கிடைத்தால் நுழைவாயா?

Translation:

There is no one in my heart till now
If you find a gap would you enter?

?? Enter what? Where? Plus the word Chandhu (gap) in Tamil literally means an alley. I can understand writing:
பாதை கிடைத்தால் வருவாயா?
or something like that..but chandhu? Nuzhaivaaya? Is that an appropriate word in a romantic song.

Movie: Alai Paayudhe (Waves are breaking)
Lyricist: Vairamuthu
Song: Evano Oruvan

Shalini is despairing because of the tugs of love in her heart and family pressure. This song goes on in the background:

எவனோ ஒருவன் வாசிக்கிறான் இருட்டில் இருந்து நான் யாசிக்கிறேன்
தவம் போல் இருந்து யோசிக்கிறேன் அதைத் தவணை முறையில் நேசிக்கிறேன்

Translation:

Someone is playing a (flute) and in the dark I am begging him
I sit in meditation and think and I love it in installments

I can understand the first line and even the second half. But, installments? That is "Thavanai Murai" in advertisements for buying cars or cots. It is not a term you associate with love, unless you are paying someone for it. And I don't think they accept installments...or credit cards.

I will leave you with one of the old classics, so that you forget about Prabhu Deva's eyeballs:

நாடாளும் வண்ண மயில் காவியத்தில் நான் தலைவன்
நாட்டிலுள்ள அடிமைகளில் ஆயிரத்தில் நான் ஒருவன்
மாளிகையில் அவள் வீடு
மரக்கிளையில் என் கூடு

Translation:

For this princess who is ruling the nation, in her epic story I am the hero
But among this nation's slaves, I am one in a thousand
Her home is in a palace
while I nest in a tree branch

And it all rhymes and fits the context!!

The White Tiger, Slumdog Millionaire - Insights of the Colonized

I have not yet watched Slumdog Millionaire - but I am going to and think I will enjoy it.
But the movie has ignited a very lively debate that has gone on in the internet, print and in television - does the movie reflect a real India? Does the movie deserve an Oscar? One of the most vexing questions has been this - do movies that portray India poorly get noticed more in the West and corner awards? Amitabh Bachan wrote a blog about it, then retracted it - whatever.
If you read the internet forums, people are split right down the middle on this one - people point out that such movies are made with the idea of getting awards. I am not sure that Danny Boyle had the Oscars in mind. Lots of people are outraged by the stark shots of Dharavi. Meanwhile an equal number say that India's poor suffer from underexposure - not over exposure. This argument quickly becomes political - is India developing or not? Why do western filmmakers always show an India that is underdeveloped?

Shyam Benegal perhaps gave the best explanation - he said that Danny Boyle was not Indian and the movie is his creative expression. Thus his creative expressions can only show India as he sees it (along with his crew). Nothing wrong with that - same thing happens if an Indian makes a movie about Italy.

The Colonized

But I think there is an underlying issue here - it is obvious that we, Indians care a lot about how our country and culture APPEARS abroad. Particularly in the West. The most important reason why this happens is because we were a former colony of Britain. Colonized and Oppressed races do have a tendency to prove themselves before thir former "masters". I have seen a very similar tendency among African-Americans in the USA.
Our textbooks and education is full of the point of view of an outsider looking in. Subash Ghai said the most happiest he felt was when "700 white people applauded Taal in Chicago". Note that he specifically said white people, not Americans or even non-Indians. Our nation's elite, in particular, are highly self-conscious. Amitabh Bachan has been attacking Satyajit Ray for a long time "for showing India under a bad light". This is why the most minor reference to India by Obama or Bush or Clinton transports our media to orgasm.
Media stars refer to "India arriving on the world stage" again and again. We want to be a super-power, not because the word has any meaning; but because then we will get equal respect. Get noticed somehow. We will model our award shows on their award shows; we will model our economy on theirs; we will show - somehow - that we are no different.
It is this high value we place on Western opinion - while simultaneously ignoring native wisdom, that makes us angry when "India is shown in a poor light". We think the POINT of the movie is to show a fallen India. But, of course, that is not the point of the movie. The story, the plot, is the pont of the movie - let us not invent any further.
I think this is a very natural reaction of colonized peoples - but it has to be overcome. A little self-esteem is what we need.

Meanwhile, The Colonizers are not free of problems of their own. Let me explain with an issue I have been facing for some time.
I have tried reading English novels by Indian authors in the recent past. I read Salman Rushdie's "Midnight's Children" when I was much younger, and I liked it. In the last five years, I buy English novels by Indian authors from time to time and always abandon them in the middle.
What bothers me about them? Why can't I read and enjoy novels by Indian English authors? I have tried repeatedly - The Inheritance of Loss, White Tiger, The Namesake - all of them. I am not able to even complete them - why is that?
Then I read Tamil writer Jayamohan's interview to A.Muthulingam in the Tamil literary magazine, Kalachuvadu and it made sense. The question to Jayamohan was about marketing his books to an international audience. Jayamohan said (I am paraphrasing here) that a Western audience (which is where the money is) is not interested in most Indian literature. They look to Indian books and movies for "knowledge" - that is, for learning about an alien culture. They are not really interested in the philosphical or literary beauty of the work - because they think they get enough of that from their literature.
This is a key idea and I agree. Most discussions about Slumdog or White Tiger with Americans (that I have had) revolve around whether the incidents narrated happen or can happen. But that is NOT the question they would ask when watching an American movie. While a movie like "The Dark Knight" is watched assuming its internal coherence, an Indian book or movie is automatically associated with reality - it is not read as a literary work but as a tour guide.
That tour-guidishness is, of course, a need that many Indian authors in English satisfy. Mind you, I think they are pretty good literary writers, but subconsciously they are not addressing "Us".
For example, Arvind Adiga's White Tiger narrative is in first person, as a letter written to the Chinese leader. By adopting this narrative, Mr.Adiga has conveniently taken the point of view of an Indian explaining his country to a foreigner - which is, of course, exactly what he is assuming his audience are. The little explanations the narrator offers about India to the visting leader, are, thus, directed from the writer to his Western reader.
That puts me off, because Arvind Adiga did not intend me as the reader. Again, I am not saying the book is bad - it is just not intended for me to read. It is a tour guide for British and American reading public.
This is why I am not able to complete the Namesake, and the Inheritance of Loss. I am bewildered by their tone and subject matter. There are also other reasons - Anita Desai, Jhumpa Lahiri and Arvind Adiga are themselves cross-cultural children. They are dealing internally with the immigrant experience and a need to explore their home country. They end up writing something that fails to connect with me.
I do not see the same tone in other foreign works - Orhan Pamuk writes from Turkey; Jose Saramago from Portugal. Their works are translated into English and they read well. It must be the peculiarity of colonization and the unique cross-cultural situation of Indian elite writers that causes this disconnect with their own countrymen (I think Arundhati Roy has escaped this. Her writing is still interesting).
As a result, the Colonizers read a version that is tailor made for them. Authentic and rich literary work in Indian regional languages rarely make it outside and never make it popular. Their loss - I think we gain more by cultural osmosis.

This blog post was based on a internet chat I had with my American friend, John (name changed). I have the actual chat text below, if it helps clarify what my thinking is.

Ramiah says:
hey u busy?
John says:
what's up
Ramiah says:
well I thought about what u said about the movie - here is the core problem
I think when you talk about this movie and others and when I discuss them with you
the basic question is always about if these things happen or not
but that is not a question that you ask of all movies
which means that writer was right
when you watch Indian movies or read Indian lit
you think about what you can learn about the country from that movie or book
but of course literature and movies are not always about learning geography or economics
they are about actual people and their emotions and their philosphies
and the problem is the movies you watch and observe about India caricature all of that
so that they can bring you snippets of an alien life successfully
these movies and books are fine
don't get me wrong
but they are very miniscule part of what life in India and literature in India comprises
my specific point is that u don't watch an Indian movie the same way u watch an American movie
and these movies are tailor made for u
and so are the books
John says:
I disagree - it depends on the subject matter
Ramiah says:
this is why I find it very difficul to read english books by Indian authors
because they are not "indian" literature
they are tailor made for ur consumption
John says:
if the movie is about a poor kid growing up in Harlem then the environment is going to be a big part of the movie's focus
Ramiah says:
yes but the way you watch it is different - because you culturally "get" Harlem
John says:
the more 'foreign' the context the more focus it gets
Ramiah says:
and not India
John says:
dude - you think white people 'get' harlem?
Ramiah says:
yes
John says:
try to get them to go there
Ramiah says:
u get Harlem the same way I get the Dharavi slum in Mumbai
it is a part of our cultural consiousness
we may not go there
but we most defintely "get" it

Pedestrian Rights - It Is My Road Too

I read a recent article in The Hindu titled thus: Poor Patronage for Subways, Foot Overbridges. Please read it for a better perspective on this blog.

The overall attitude of our police officers and citizens with vehicles is that in Chennai (and in India) pedestrian "discipline" is the major cause of accidents involving pedestrians. I was travelling in a car near Thiruvanmiyur. We entered a narrow lane with teashops and houses on either side. A person crossed the street to a teashop, in front of our car. One of the guys with me said , "walks as if it is his father's road". You hear this kind of comments from educated people all the time.
The other day I saw a person crossing a junction talking on the cellphone. A lady stopped her scooter just before her and yelled at her for using the cellphone.
During the rains, the road near my home is flooded on one side. Pedestrians have to walk in the middle of the road to avoid stepping in the putrid water. Car drivers lunge at them, honk at them and generally try to make the pedestrians run for cover.
We know all of this, it happens before us, and there is no reasonable framework to address this.
The reason is that police officers and the general public have completely bought into the view that a road belongs to cars and motorcyclists. Wherever that road may be, whatever the circumstance.
I have written in detail about the plight of pedestrians in Rajiv Gandhi road (OMR) : one of the complaints of the guy in the car (in above article) is that he has to "apply sudden breaks in his car in the OMR". The OMR is a straight road, and the speed limit is 40km/h. If you had to apply sudden brakes, it means a suicidal maniac ran in front of your car.
But that is the picture they present - that pedestrians are somehow leisurely strolling across "their" roads. Anyone who walks in any of these roads would know that the opposite is true.
I think the core problem is that there is no awareness of what rights a pedestrian has - and hence the whatever pedestrians do, they are blamed for accidents.

List of Pedestrian Rights
I will suggest below the following set of Pedestrian Rights - I know these may not be followed, but we have to make an effort:
1. In a traffic signal with no "walk" signals (for pedestrians), walkers have right of way to cross the road on a green signal. Turning vehicles have to stop for pedestrians.

2. In a road or alley or street, if there is no pedestrian sidewalks, (or if there IS a pedestrian sidewalk and it is unpassable), then 15% of the road width on either side belongs to pedestrians. Cars should NOT park on this zone.

3. If a pedestrian set foot on a pedestrian crossing, traffic SHOULD stop until they cross. Pedestrian crossings are meant to be that way - in practice noone respects them.

4. In a school zone or in residential roads, pedestrians have right of way across at any point.

5. In roads that pass through suburban districts or office districts, medians should be low and pelican signals (where a pedestrian can press a button for a signal) should be available in frequent intervals.

Implementation

Why are such rules very difficult to enforce in our roads? There are practical reasons why people find it difficult to call shots or fight for their rights in plenty of other situations.
But, after observing traffic violators for some time, I have noticed this - most people are not rogues. Most people violate laws because noone teaches them the laws.
This is, of course, not conventional wisdom - I have heard people blame Regional Transport Offices (RTOs) for issuing licenses indiscriminately. But the core problem is NOT that people do not follow know how to drive. I have been through the driving license classes and here is the core problem - there is NO Training or Education in RTOs.
That is, RTOs reserve the right to issue licenses - but there is no information supplied by them about a list of traffic rules to follow. In the United States and in most developed countries, getting a driving license is a two-step process. First, you have to get a book, read it, and then clear a written test. Only after the written test do you get the Learner's License. After that you take driving lessons.

The FIRST step is learning traffic rules and learning (fundamentally) that driving is a social act and it has certain responsibilities.
By focussing instead on driving as simple as learning to turn the steering and manage the gears, RTOs have failed their purpose.

If, such a educational system exists, then it is easy to take the list of pedestrian rights and push them as part of the syllabus.
Pedestrian discipline is NOT the problem; Jaywalking is NOT the problem - the problem is driver attitudes and our torturous roads.

If you are an NRI and planning to return

I have a few thoughts on what you can prepare for. The following is purely based on my personal experience and I don't intend to generalize. Some of what I am saying may apply only to people in my industry (computer software).


The Reasons to Move Back

1. Family Parties
One reason we moved back was so that we could be with close relatives. We had very few relatives in the USA, and those who were there wanted nothing to do with us.
Now, people will tell you that relatives are a good reason to actually stay away. In my case that was not true.
But the problem for some is that even if you come back, your relatives may be all over India - it is not like the olden days. Families are highly distributed and so your hopes of family parties every week may be dashed.
In my case, we did have fun.

Another reason is the weather - wait, I am joking.

2. Career
One good reason is for career growth - there are people who believe that in the USA it is hard to grow for an Indian. I won't get into controversy, but in India, it is true that if you have enough years of experience, and you are from the USA you can land a good position.
BUT, increasingly, I have seen that NRIs are being recruited more by startups and smaller, medium-sized companies than by large IT companies. The large IT companies sometimes go out of the way to prove that you are not "special" because you are from the USA.
Now, about the work culture and how much "cushy" your job is - I will have more to say about that later.

Will you earn (realtively) more than you did in the USA? A couple of years back, the answer would be yes - although it depends a lot on your years of experience. Now, with the current market, I am not so sure. For senior positions, in technology or management, you could command from 16L per year (10-12 years of experience, Chennai) to 25L per year (in Bangalore). These are very word-of-mouth, but as an average, I believe you could command double the avreage pay for a given experience range in a given city. This may not be possible now, in this market.
Check out this link for some information on average payscale in Chennai.
Why are NRIs so valuable? Are they really worth much more than an Indian employee? We will discuss that later.

3. Cultural Reasons
There are NRIs with a family, who feel that bringing up their kids in India may be a better idea for cultural reasons. Some of them get worried about the consumerist culture in the USA; about the way kids become teenagers very fast; about "attitude"; and so on. (Again, no need for controversy here. I myself have different opinions and I am only narrating what I have heard parents express).
Well, I believe that India is getting to be a hundred times more consumerist; and at least the USA has a movement of people pushing back against the media there. In India, media dominates our lives and is so corrupt and incompetent that they rival with politicians for primary villain status. If you are in India and watching television in the comfort of your home, expect to be bombarded in prime time by images of gore, sex and violence beyond anything in the USA. Women are regularly shown as sex objects and television news commonly shows images of drowned bodies and bloody deaths without any warning.
But, the print media is still vibrant and if you want to stay in touch with the rest of India, newspapers are a good beginning. Other than that the education system in India is in dire need of reform. We will discuss more of this later.

In my case, one of the reasons I felt very excited about coming back was, frankly, the food, music and literature. You can wake up in the morning and walk upto a hotel next to you to get pongal and chutney - that was very important. Try doing that in Philadelphia.
And then the music. There are the FM stations, the television music channels and dozens of talent-hunt shows. You could be walking through a slum and suddenly hear a snatch of your favorite song from childhood. I know that many of these channels are available either on the web or through DTH, so that is a compensation in the USA. But I wanted the real thing.
Unfortunately, the neighbors also tend to play music loud so sometimes you could end up hearing "where is the party?" too many times.
I am interested in modern Tamil literature and the books and writers are all in Tamil Nadu. There are many, of course, who enjoy and stay in touch with literature from abroad. But I felt I would have a much better handle on things here in Chennai.

Now from all of the above you could see a common thread: when I came back, I actually returned to the city that speaks my language and shares my childhood culture. That is hard for most people. Many of my friends advised me to go to Bangalore for better pay. But then, we felt we could have stayed in the USA for that matter. If I think that way, it is far tougher if you are from Bhubaneshwar or Calcutta or Guwahati or Jaipur or Patna (if you are in IT, I mean. Nothing wrong with those cities). This is a crucial decision - if you are coming back to be in your "home culture", you may actually end up somewhere else. Please keep that in mind.

When you make the decision
Start interviewing. Decide on the city and start sending your resumes and attending phone interviews - when you are in the USA. Don't wait till you come back.
A few people want to take a long break when they return - relax for 3 months and then start attending interviews. The assumption is that companies would jump to recruit you - that is risky, I believe. I think they will negotiate with you better if you are actually in the USA. You can always ask for a break before joining.

Most companies do not make a decision till you meet them in person in India. When you come to India you HAVE to go through their stupid security frisking, their HR's attitude and all that. It is your initiation rite into the Indian business culture.

Most startups and even medium companies will flat out lie to you about many things - they may have a bond for employees and they won't reveal it to you until you come back. Their work location may be completely different from what they told you. Their attitude is basically focussed on short-term gain (this is true of Indian business in general). They intend to lie to you, get you to join them; and then hope you won't get angry and leave when you find out the real terms.
(This was not my experience, but I have seen others go through this process).
So here are a few things to ask your potential employer:
1. Is there a bond? What are the terms of the bond? Remember, you can actually refuse to sign a bond, make that clear outright, and still get the job.
2. Which location would you be posted in?
3. What is the notice period for quitting? Try to negotiate this - companies keep hiking it and now it stands at 3 months in some places.
4. What is the percentage travel in the job? Some companies will try to get you to go back to the USA or UK for "visits". If you have returned for peace and quiet, that may not help.
5. How much is the actual monthly pay you will get and what is the variable pay?
6. Do you have saturday and sunday off? This was important to me.
7. Who would you actually be reporting to?

I would suggest an idea here that may work for some of you but not all:
If you are working in the USA with an American concern, and you like them, then there is an alternative you can try. Ask them if you can work from India. I am doing this currently and it is lucrative, and lets you work from home. Of course, if your company does not like remote control this may take some convincing. But with modern technology, it is possible pretty cheaply. You have Skype, broadband lines, and VPN software that lets you work very efficiently.
Get all of your contacts in the USA and let them know you are moving back to India and that you would be open to working from India for them. A few may consider it. You will get paid in dollars: there is no service tax on software exports and you need to pay taxes only in India (because of the tax treaty between India and the USA).

File your taxes properly in the USA and make sure that when you leave, your pending taxes still get paid.
Allow yourselves a couple of months to make the move back. I shipped most of my books back by the US Postal service for cheap (a dollar per pound)- it took 2-3 months to arrive but was in good condition.

The Culture Shock
When you come back, there generally WILL be a culture shock. This will happen even if you have been visiting India once an year. Your relatives and friends in India generally will not understand this culture shock. I have heard people making fun of NRIs for "showing off" for as little as complaining about the weather.
Most people's understanding of NRIs is that they are abroad ONLY for the money. They do not seem to understand that there is a quality of life in most countries that is fundamentally different from India. There is more personal freedom in the West(but maybe not in the Persian Gulf countries), a respect for privacy; people behave maturely in public. Dealing with government agencies is not such a pain. Cars don't try to kill you while crossing the road. Your kids's school talks to you nicely. Hospitals are more friendly.
So, there IS a culture shock, even though you were born and brought up in India. You can talk about it among understanding people, but try not to complain about India to people you know casually or at work. It is difficult for them to sympathize.
The schools are the worst, if you have kids. Parents have no leverage and the education system is stunted in the 19th century. It does not change just because you pay more.
In fact that is a lesson to learn - more money does not automatically bring in higher quality in India.
The hospitals have pros and cons - on the one hand, they are good quality, the doctors are obviously qualified. They are cheaper compared to the USA at least. Health Insurance does exist, but generally only for hospitalization. The problem is that the doctors are overworked. They see fifty to seventy patients a day and have no time for a real diagnosis. In fact, diagnosis is horrendous. The doctors yell a lot and do not have bedside manners at all.
On the other hand, my mom had cancer and they cured it. For much lesser cost than anywhere else in the West.
Kids do fall sick more frequently; and weird epidemics sweep the population. But you gain some resistance and you can manage.
I have been negative thus far - but there are areas in which life here is far better. One such is the explosion of the services industry and the use of mobile phones. You can order anything from a personal chauffeur to grocery items by phone - they will be delivered to home. The service level is high and I have always felt that customer service in local stores is much better in India.
And if you fall sick, your family is close by. Neighbors talk to each other and help out.
Travel is much easier - it is easy to hire vans or cars and be driven as far as Kerala. Agents will take care of all your needs, from food to lodging. As I said, the best thing is the services industry.

Work Culture
Forget 9-to-5. You will be working harder and will have less time with family. But companies do allow working from home for senior staff.
There are three main types of IT companies:
1. Sevices company doing business with overseas clients.
2. Product company selling software products
3. Indian branch of Multi-National Corporations

The Indian services companies are known to be the worst in terms of work culture and stress. Product companies are said to be a lot better (but I have not worked in one).

People "interact" with each other a lot at work. Coffee, Lunch sessions are long and relaxing. People do not usually have voice mail. For a person like me, this was heaven - I could talk all day long with friends. It was difficult to get work done sometimes though.
Personally, I like working in India much, much better than in the USA. It is difficult to explain, but I felt happy going to work on Mondays. I could always meet new people, engage in conversations. Work is not sit-in-your-cubicle-and-stare-at-the-monitor type. There are mostly younger people in IT companies and the atmosphere is like a carnival.
But, it is possible that I felt this way because I was higher up (relatively) in the hierarchy.

Why are NRIs valuable to a company?
One reason why you are valuable is because you already are assumed to possess the following:
1. Good expression of the English language
2. Good "soft skills" such as email etiquette and writing documents
3. Experience dealing with foriegn clients and an understanding of cultural differences
4. And lastly, competence at work
For Indian companies the first 3 items are hard to find and train for. They are valued skills. Competence at work is, of course, available in India too.

Will you regret your decision?
I still am not regretting my decision to move back after 3 years. I may go back and forth, but I think I made the right move. The thing is, it is a very personal decision and difficult to explain to others. If you can justify it with your spouse, then go for it. Do not try to convince everyone around you.

For more "analysis" please read one of my previous posts here.

Narendra Modi, Nano, YSR, and Satyam

(Updated below)
Here is a special in rediff.com about the sops offered to Tata's Nano factory by Gujarat CM Modi.
I participated in the forum discussions in that article and found several weird arguments about Modi and capitalism. Many commenters praised Modi for being competitive in business. Modi seems to be the darling of "India Inc" and his aggressive policies are said to be a model for the nation.
Now it has turned out that Andhra Pradesh government has been following similar policies for transferring public lands to Satyam. You can read Praful Bidwai's excellent article in rediff.com here.
There is a talking point here - many defenders of Modi claim that pro-business policies followed by Modi are appropriate and will pay themselves off in the future. For example, while the Gujarat government loses lots of tax revenue from the benefits offered to Tata, this loss will be compensated by the thousands of new jobs created by Tata in Gujarat. This same argument is also used by many state governments in India.
It is obvious that most politicians and policy makers have accepted the idea that you can shower lots of favors to a businessman from public money. While in the past this would have been considered scandalous to offer freebies to businessmen, now everyone seems to think it is a very wise, intelligent policy. Surely Modi has received lots of credit for his wooing of Tata.
Whatever this policy is, it is definitely not capitalism. If anything, such policies can be called "Crony capitalism" and have always been detrimental to growth - not favorable. In the rediff forums, most commenters thought such policies were followed by developed countries. That is just untrue. There is a very strong theoretical, logical reason why the policies promoted by Modi and the AP CM, YSR will not work.

I will describe that reason below.

The Market and The Invisible Hand
The fundamental idea that almost every economist in the world accepts is the efficiency of the Market. Adam Smith, in his "Wealth of Nations" described how the market works. Purely selfish motives of individuals (economic agents) in an economic system gives raise to the market. Adam Smith said that such a market would meet demand much better than a centrally planned economy.
Consider an imaginary city, Gotham.
Let us say the Gotham city mayor sits in a room and says which individual should produce how much and which individual should consume a certain quantity. This is a centrally planned economy - it does not depend on the market to match supply with demand. Such a economic system would be very inefficient and would soon fail.
This is what happened to communist countries. Communist economic theory depends on a centrally planned economy.
On the contray, let us say the Gotham mayor and city council created a minimal set of laws. One such law will be to make sure businesses do not use violence against each other. Another may be to make sure that the businesses do not employ slave labor. Yet another may be that businesses do not spoil the environment.
After passing these laws, the Gotham city mayor does nothing. he lets the selfish motives of businessmen play out in the market.
Adam Smith proved that such a market will be much more efficient in meeting needs and only such an economy would grow well. In effect, the centrally planned economy would fail while a free market would succeed.
Every reasonable economist in the world accepts Adam Smith's premise. Developed economies are guided by these principles and they have obviously worked very well.

Markets and Regulation
Then what do economists differ on? What are the policy differences between Paul Krugman (Nobel economic prize winner) and Alan Greenspan (former US federal reserve board chairman)?
The difference is usually on the set of laws passed by the government - one set of economists believe that markets should have zero regulation by the government. This is called laissez-faire capitalism. In the above Gotham city example, the law that prohibits environmental damage will be opposed by free market economists. They believe that environmental issues will be ironed out within the market. Similarly, let us say Gotham city mayor passed a law that imposes a minimum wage for laborers (that is, employers should pay at least that amount for any work). This law would be opposed by free market economists.
The other set of economists believe that government should protect society as much as possible - therefore they would welcome a minimum wage.
Thus, the fight is over government's role. There are many who blame the current financial crisis on the lack of government regulation in the United States. These economists believe that businessmen may be motivated by greed and may violate the market in different ways.
In India, one prime example for such greed acting against society was the rise and fall of several finance companies in the 90s. The market was not well-regulated at that point and allowed businessmen to make money by cheating innocents.

Crony Capitalism
Now, even though both these sets of economists disagree on several issues they also agree on something crucial - the market is the judge of businesses. In a just society, the market should never be weighed down in favor of a specific businessman or group. If you do that, you are weighing down the economic system. The growth produced by such favors to a certain family or group will be short-term. The market will automatically create jobs and manage supply with demand - government should NOT influence the success or failure of indvidual businesses. If they do that, they are not being fair to other competitive businesses.
That is, instead of the market rewarding good ideas and rejecting bad ideas, the government tries to take on that task itself. This is always a bad idea - every economist around the world would oppose such policies.
Such acts of favor or bribes cause a skewed form of capitalism called "Crony Capitalism". It is harmful to an economic system.


Modi and Crony capitalism
In the article linked first in this blog, rediff.com lists a number of favors arranged for Tata's benefit by the Gujarat government. Tata is a businessman and he has managed to play the role of a noble soul after the Singur protests. He seems to have the negotiation advantage, if there were any negotiations at all. Thanks to the media, there has been a fevered pitch of excitement on Nano and the media has succcessfully managed to make Tata's travalils our own.
There are people who argue that job creation is primary goal. Some guy even calculated that in 10 years the government of Gujarat would get money back from the Nano plant because of tax payments by employees. But there is a vital flaw in such arguments:
What if the Nano is a failure?
Let us say that some design flaws make Nano a failure. Can the Gujarat government assure that the Nano will be a success? They can't - the factory is not even in their control. They have not studied the market or discussed the quality procedures or the thousand other things that can go wrong with a product. By tying themselves to a single businessman's product, the government has committed taxpayer money for something it has no capability to ensure or manage.
Instead sound economic theory requires that the Gujarat government create conditions for manufacturers in general and then wait for business to flourish.
Let me point out another flaw - when Tata gets such a huge set of benefits, his competitors cannot thrive. They are contributing their money while Tata is getting taxpayer money from Gujarat. Thus the market is skewed by the government in favor of Tata.
This is the very definition of Crony capitalism.
What Modi has done is worse than funding public sector companies - he has funded something he has no control over. Atleast with public sector companies the government has the management in its control. Modi, instead, has handed over money for no control.
I have to point out - the slogan of "India Inc" and a purposeful, noble business class has been created and sustained by the media. If Tata was so noble, he would have rejected these crony capitalist sops. Instead, the media has made it somehow the Indian people's task to fund the Nano.

YSR and Satyam
Now, it has turned out that the AP CM has been doing the same thing for Satyam. The same media which was cheering on Modi are now pretending that YSR is corrupt. If YSR is corrupt, so is Modi. Just an year back, everyone was celebrating Satyam and people were applying the same wrong arguments of job creation when YSR was handing over public land to Ramalinga Raju.
In the case of Satyam, the communists have been the smartest in bringing public attention to the government sponsored bailout (read Sitaram Yechury's opinions here) . It seems Manomohan Singh, the renowned free-market economist is now trying to pour public money to Satyam. People are still talking about "job creation" by Raju - if the economy adds ten thousand jobs and then loses double that every few years, it is not growth. If we could grow by cooking numbers all the time, every country would be prosperous.


Update I:
1. At any other period in modern history, if a politician poured public money into private hands, people would suspect bribes. Instead, the politician is hailed as a hero now. This sea change in attitudes (without any matching change in the quality of politicians) is purely a result of brainwashing and propaganda.
For example, the media has successfully created the myth of "India Inc" as a set of patriotic businessmen, focussed on India's growth. People have tended to identify themselves with Tata or Ambani than with other middle class labor. The truth is in a country like India, the rule of law pretty much does not exist, and a feudal system is persistent. In such a scenario, businessmen act as predators - not benign patriots. This is not to blame them - they have incentives to circumvent the law.

For the last twenty years the residents of the Chennai suburbs of Chromepet and Pallavaram have been fighting a battle against the tanning factories in that area. These factories have polluted the air and water bodies of that region and made it almost uninhabitable. Well, the citizens who organized and fought had to face threats of violence and intimidation by the "patriotic" businessmen.
The truth is, the Indian system encourages systematic lawbreakers - just as our politicians have grown to be lawless, so have our businessmen.

2. Let me explain the economic theory a little bit better:
As I said, the main differences between economists is on government's role in passing laws. Why is that? Because every sensible economist believes in the market. More importantly, they believe in a fair market. But how the market maintains neutrality, fairness and encourages growth is not determinable all the time. The market responds to incentives in different directions; sometimes these responses may be complex to measure.

For example, the software industry in India is treated as a sunrise industry and there are many subsidies offered to that industry. By classical economics, such subsidies are wrong and should not be applied - because they lead to "protectionism". Adam Smith and most famous economists after him (such as Ricardo and Marshall) have been against protectionism. Ultimately, they believe that a protected market offers fewer choices and innovations to the consumer.
Yet, the subsidies do seem to be working very well.

As yet another example, the American laws that abolished the differences between commercial and investment banks in 1999 and enabled unregulated derivatives trading may have caused the current financial crisis, 10 years later.

Therefore, the effects of the laws are open to speculation. Mathematical models of great complexity are required for analyzing the direction of the markets from incentives.
But, what is NOT open to speculation is this - every economist desires a fair market.
The key motivator in economics is the fairness of the market. Every economist agrees with THAT, even though they may not agree on how to reach there.

Handing off public land to Tata or Satyam skews the fairness of the market. That is why it is called crony capitalism.

This is why Modi's actions and YSR's actions are wrong - because they go against every economic basics. They may claim they are brave souls experimenting with the economy, but they should experiment with their own money, not our money. I suspect that the truth is not that they are clairvoyant or brave - I think Modi's actions and YSR's actions come from base ignorance and greed. That is a potent combination.

Talking Point - Leave Muslims Alone

This blog is becoming more and more political; that is how I would like it to be. I initially planned a mix of humor and politics. But I am staying at home now and nothing humorous comes to mind.
One of the original intentions of this blog was to handle intellectual talking points. I used to participate in online debates on society, economics, culture and politics in message boards and forums. At that point I realized that most people around me in the real world had no interest in such debates. Online, on the other hand, was useful - it is anonymous, easy to use and people around the world participate.

Cultural Memes

There has been lots of research done on cultural "memes" - ideas that spread around society and influence people's thinking. Let me explain with an example - when Indira Gandhi died, 2000 Sikhs were massacred in Delhi in cold blood. Prime Minister Mr.Rajiv Gandhi explained it thus: "when a big tree falls, the earth shakes".
This was an easy-to-remember, but meaningless and dangerous phrase. But it comforts people and lets them know that they could not have done anything different. It tells them to go on with life as usual.
Another talking point that Sridhar has raised in a comment to my blog is this - that as a democracy, we, the people, are to blame for all our problems (Sridhar also explained his reasoning; I am paraphrasing here). At its core, as he elaborates, the idea is that we do not have a healthy society. And the reason is not politicians as we reflexively blame, but ourselves. It is our own corruption that is the root cause. I have heard of other people say this, but I think this point of view is wrong. I will explain in a later post.
These are ideas - the idea that blacks are to blame for the credit crisis in the USA is a rightwing idea. That climate crisis (global warming) is bogus is a talking point.
What is common to these? They take a simple idea and repeat it over and over again, rarely substantiated with anything more than hysteria. But these talking points have lots of power. Most people in a society are not "engaged" in politics or history - and such talking points embed themselves in cultural memory and refuse to be dislodged. Some are mere differences of opinion, while others cause genocide.

Talking Points can only be fought with vigorous challenging and debunking at a public level. The Tamil writer Gnani writes a weekly column in Kumudham (he used to write in Vikatan). This column very effectively challenges different talking points. His article on the Indo-US nuclear deal was a classic - he pointed out that shifting to nuclear energy does nothing to reduce global warming (a talking point) because most global warming gases are caused by transportation such as cars and trucks.

There is actually a website called talkingpointsmemo.com run by Josh Marshall that articulates liberal points of view and debunks right wing talking points in the United States.

My goal in this blog (with all humility) is to address a few talking points that bother me. Debunking them here, hopefully spreads a message across. Even if I reach a few people, the idea is in the internet and also helps to me as a future reference.

Having said that, let me discuss a prime talking point here - the question of "Islamic" fundamentalism.

*************************************************

Here are a few ideas I find floating around online and even find expression by educated people:

Item 1: Muslims should explain why terrorism happens. Muslim leaders should condemn terrorism and they don't.
Answer: Terrorism is a tactic of achieving political goals with the threat of violence against citizens. That tactic is practiced throughout the world by different groups. For example, Israel's current bombing of Gaza is a clear act of terrorism - it tries to achieve political goals with collective punishment of Palestinian civilians.
Now, states practice terrorism, and so do non-state actors. Such non-state actors happen to be prominent in formerly colonized countries of the globe, because developing countries have not ironed out issues of sovereignty and self-determination of ethnic minorities. Many of these formerly colonised countries of the world happen to be Muslim. There are also Christian terriorist groups in Africa and of course, LTTE in Sri Lanka.
As an example, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) is a "Christian" terrorist group operating in Uganda and Sudan. Some estimates say that the LRA has killed more people than all other such groups put together.
Thus, terrorism as a tactic is practiced by many non-state actors and state actors throughout the world and the phenomenon was neither "started" by Muslims nor do they have to defend their community. We have to note that the word terrorism is heavily abused - for example, the USA designates Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations, although they are seen as legitimate freedom fighters by people of the Palestine and Arab countries.
Thus, the demand, that Muslim leaders condemn terrorist acts performed by a few extremists, is absurd. Muslims suffer as much from terrorism as Hindus.

Item 2: Muslims have their own civil law and do not respect the Indian constitution.
Answer: The Indian constitution makes a uniform civil code optional. The directive principles of state policy, article 44 states the following:

The State shall endeavour to secure for the citizens a uniform civil code throughout the territory of India.

But, the directive principles are aspirational and are not enforceable by courts (Article 37).
The BJP and RSS drum this again and again - that Muslims should not have their own civil code. But minority rights are guaranteed by our constitution - the party that introduced POTA has no right to talk about the constitution.

Item 3: Muslims are not patriotic enough. They are not proud of India
Answer: No group can demand patriotic proofs from any other citizens - Muslims are under no obligation to prove their patriotism to anyone. Further, these same guys who call Muslims unpatriotic have called everyone who opposes them as unpatriotic. People tend to forget this, but the Shive Sena's origins were in anti-South Indian movements in Mumbai. The Sangh Parivar would call anyone who does not want to speak Hindi unpatriotic.
Note that I am not talking about sacrifices that Muslims have made for India or their contribution. There is no point in emphasizing "contribution". Even if I have not contributed anything to my country, no one has any right to question my patriotism, period.
I would ask members of the Sangh Parivar if they have ever felt proud about India's Muslim heritage - they seem to pretend that Indian history stops after Mohammed Ghazni. Why are they not proud of the Mughals or Lodi dynasty? These are the people who demolished the Babri Masjid - yet they talk about pride in heritage.

Item 4: Islam and the Koran encourage violence
Answer: Every religion does. The Old Testament Bible is full of violence. So are Hindu scriptures. You could literally interpret the Gita as encouraging violence and killing relatives in pursuit of wealth. That interpretation would be absurd, but you can do the same thing with any religious text. Most mature adults can distinguish between a literal interpretation of religion and what is practical. I am always amazed by the capacity of the people who celebrate 3000 years of the caste system to then turn around and accuse other religions of intolerance.
The India Policy Institute has published statistics on the communal riots in India since independence.
Casualties in communal clashes during the period 1968-80 were as follows :-

Year No. of incidents Hindus Muslims Others/Police Total
1968 346 24 99 10 133
1969 519 66 558 49 674
1970 521 68 176 54 298
1971 321 38 65 - 103
1972 210 21 45 3 70
1973 242 26 45 1 72
1974 248 26 61 - 87
1975 205 11 22 - 33
1976 169 20 19 - 39
1977 188 12 24 -- 36
1978 219 51 56 1 108
1979 304 80 150 31 261
1980 427 87 278 10 375
Total 3949 530 1598 159 2289

There are more such statistics and coverage in the pdf here.
As any reasonable person can see from these statistics, Muslims have suffered heavily in communal riots. The data also shows that police firings targeted and killed more Muslims than Hindus.
How can we claim, in such a communally charged country, that only one community is to blame for everything from terrorism to rioting?

Item 5: Muslims will overwhelm Inida with their population growth
Answer: This hysteria reached its peak with a report released a couple of years back that showed Muslim population growth to be slightly higher. Some magazines headlined this thus: "Muslims will be majority in India in another 250 years".
But that result does not make sense. Even if the population growth is 0.1% high, you could do the same extrapolation and conclude that in a thousand years India would be a Muslim majority state. This is just fear-mongering. In relative terms, Muslim population growth is declining. Further I think with a billion people, the last thing Hindus should worry about is population decline.

Many of these ideas are actually caused by common xenophobia - a feeling that the "other" person would eliminate us. It has parallels in every culture - the Germans treated Jews and gypsies as the other. USA treated black people as the other.
There is a strong desire among a few among majority cultures to completely eliminate any diversity. Today it is Muslims, tomorrow it will be Tamils.
The Sangh Parivar and its supporters will call all of their enemies as unpatriotic and owing allegiance elsewhere. They suffer from xenophobia and a good psychiatruc therapy session would cure them of their fears.

Internet Archiving - who owns my data?

(Update below)

Something has been bothering me about the internet (or more precisely, the collection of websites I use in the internet).
As an user, I have a broad range of options available now for publishing my content (such as blogs, images, video). But I do feel paranoid about certain qualities in the current internet.

Let me describe my situation - I write comments in several online discussion forums (such as rediff.com). I write blogs in DailyKos.com and blogspot.com. I upload videos to youtube.com. I also write comments in other people's blogs, whichever platform they may be. I save my bookmarks in del.icio.us.
Now, I value all this content I put in the web. For example, in several debates you come up with a new way of looking at something, an effective reply to a "talking point", a key piece of data that shuts up everybody. I am not talking about other people's content - I am specifically talking about content I myself put on the web in different websites. This is the age of User Generated Content and my content is distributed across different websites.
There are a couple of problems that I face with this distributed content:
1. How can I aggregate all my content and get updates when someone replies to me or links to me? This is a problem that RSS solves. I will not elaborate on this here.
2. How can I collect and provide a kind of catalog of my opinions in all these different websites? Let us say that in the near future I seek admission to Harvard. Is there someway that I can provide a collection of all my valuable content to Harvard so that I can be credentialized? Looking into the future, we can expect a new generation to start creating their identity online by teenage and thus leave a trail of their work and impressions (in whatever format) across the interner as they grow older. How can someone maintain this digital trail and leverage it?
The point is this problem has always existed even before the age of the internet. For example, if you wanted to collect the complete works of Einstein you went to every university he ever went to and searched libraries and archives. Some of these archives are digitized now, but nobody came up with a solution for an easy mechanism to package up your life's work. It was close to impossible in the pre-internet world to have a centralized collection of all of one's life's work.
But, this problem is solvable in the digital age - the facebook, orkut, myspace generation is going to have access to internet most of the time. Fifty years from now, it is possible to expect that a person's life's work can be determined by a biographer or an anthologist merely from the digital world.

So, what prevents me from getting a digital collection of my own work distributed across the internet, right now?
I can, of course, prepare a set of links with my rediff.com comments, my dailykos blogs, my blogspot blogs and my youtube videos. But that is all I can do - the websites reserve the right to invalidate these links at any point of time. In fact, twenty years from now, many of these may have switched off their servers and gone home.
As an internet contributor, the core problem I face is this - the rich data that is part of "my" internet, is not owned by me. It is owned by at least fifteen different websites. The same problem goes for everyone using the internet.
When I write an article in DailyKos, I want my article, along with the comments (which provide context) to be available for posterity. But I have no control over when they may "retire" the article or when Markos closes it down.
In theory, this is no different from the problems faced by preceding generations - if you are a newspaper columnist, you took paper cuttings of your column; probably photocopied it and kept it at home. That is all you could do.
I think we, in the internet age should demand more though - because more is possible now. For example, taking a printout of a webpage with my article is not good enough - because someone could be commenting on that article this minute; and I don't want to lose that context.
With their myriad ways of annotating, commenting and extending our content, the websites of the internet have made my content richer, more contextual, more centralized than in the pre-internet world. Youtube, blogspot, rediff have all made my contributions richer, but because of that it is more important that I be able to catalog and archive that content.

The tension here is between two poles - the websites have enabled me to contribute and reach a broad audience. For the survival of their business, they want me to keep coming back to their pages. So the data stays in different forms in different websites. I, on the other hand, would like to extract my data (in some format) and keep it in a set of archives so that the data is available for posterity. I am worried that all my valuable contributions will be gone some twenty years later.

I may sound paranoid, but I do care about the longevity of my thoughts - I think everyone who contributes in the internet does.

We should not allow what happened in the past centuries - there was no centralized publishing, so much work of enormous value was gone in a short time because the medium (like parchment or paper) perished. In this age almost everyone with access to the internet can publish their opinions and share their knowledge. It is all searchable. We should leverage the advantage of the digital medium and come up with a solution for extracting our data (even for a fee) and create some standards for extracting User Generated Content.
We also need a standard archiving solution that is not tied to any particular website. For a fee I should be able to store my data in different servers that are part of the meta-internet.
By the way, check out this browser add-in - http://www.iterasi.com. It provides a way for extracting any webpage for your personal storage. But the storage is still owned by iterasi.com - I think we need an internet archiving project that is more community-driven.


Update I
Refer to what happened to Soapblox in this article.
The content of several blogs running on the Soapblox platform was almost wiped out by hackers. Several years work could have been lost. This is why we need an open source extraction and archiving system.