Are Indians system-blind?

(Updated below) Update II
This is going to be a long post.
Let me mention a few incidents:
1.In Vijay TV talk show Neeya Naana, they were discussing government staff behavior in the passport office. A lady said that the staff are very rude and abuse public all the time. The host Gopinath said that Indians accuse Indian government staff of rudness; but will stand in line silently if they are abroad. I have heard this before - that the same public who drive badly and are impatient in India, will behave well and be patient abroad.
Gopinath was implying that the public were to blame for this - that we have two standards of behavior.
But, if Indians behave well abroad and not so well in India, does it mean that something is wrong with Indians? Or does it mean that something is wrong with India?

2. In every campus interview students ask a standard question - why is your company not creating products for India? Why are you in IT services business? Why are you not serving India? This common complaint is asked in different ways by many people.
The assumption is that the way Indian companies behave has something to do with the NATURE of the business owners (they are not sufficiently patriotic).
It does not seem to occur to anyone that if companies all the time rush towards IT services, it must be because the commerce system is PUSHING them in that direction. That is, a set of tariff laws, calculations of profit margin and the way international capital is mobile, pushes IT companies in India to operate in a certain business model. It has nothing to do with the NATURE or personality of business owners.

3. A few days back, I was having a conversation with a friend of mine - he operates an electronic dealership. He mentioned that his staff keeps switching jobs; and that they expect a payscale in parallel with IT industry payscales. He thought this was because of the "attitude" of Indian labor. He said they were too arrogant and expected the moon.
I explained to him that if labor expected a suddenly increased payscale, it was because we have an IT industry that operates on very good margins and is on a boom cycle. Since this industry is in booming in the same city, It is easy for employees to learn software programming from some training centres and quickly double their salaries. That is, labor was being pushed towards IT because of the inflow of IT business to India. That meant that employers like my friend were facing the same pressure from the market.
That is, it was not the "attitude" of Indian employees that needs to be blamed - there is a perfect systematic reason for that "attitude".

In each of the above examples, and in many other scenarios, Indian opinion seems to tend towards blaming people and attitudes than the interacting systems that operate on people and cause certain behavior. It seems, as a whole, Indians are system-blind.

System Blindness and the Indian Psyche
Sudhir Kakar, in his landmark work, "The Inner World", linking anthropology and Indian psychology, says this:

Hindus share the belief that the legitimacy of social institutions lies in the dharma they incorporate rather than in utilitarian contractual agreements and obligations. ....
Moreover, it is generally believed that social conflict, oppression and unrest do not stem from the organization of social relations, but originate in the adharma (not dharma) of those in positions of power. Institutions in India are thus personalized to an extent inconceivable in the West; individuals who head them are believed to be the sole repository of the virtues and vices of the institutions. ....
Many are the poignant stories of simple farmers in the early days of British rule who responded to an act of injustice by government officials by spending their all in the vain hope of reaching the Queen and gaining her ear, at Windsor.
Any tendency towards social reform in India moves not to abolish hierarchical institutions or to reject the values on which they are based, but to remove or "change" the individuals in positions of authority in them. When an institution is not working, it is taken for granted that the power-wielders have veered from the path of dharma.

The quote talks about Hindu world view, but applies to Indians as a whole (because it is a cultural than a religious world view).
So, when faced with some social structure that is broken, or when faced with a certain group of individuals who behave a certain way, as Indians, our first tendency is to blame the individuals themselves than look for systematic reasons for such behavior.
This explains each one of the items I described above. It also explains why, when faced with a broken system like our incredibly bad driving in Indian roads, we look to blame the drivers themselves, rather than look for systematic reasons why people drive badly.

System-blindness in Driving
In the case of driving, we can see that the Regional Transport Offices (RTO) are not monitoring driving schools closely, nor are they applying very strict criteria for proof of learning from the public. We learn to drive mainly from an utility point of view and do not learn that driving has a social dimension. This fault squarely falls on the RTOs. Note that I am not saying that RTOs give licenses to wrong people - almost anyone can learn responsible driving, provided there is someone to teach them and there is time to learn.
The other side of this equation is the regulatory system - we do not have enough traffio police and the police available are overworked. They also tend towards corruption.
Instead what are the consequences of blaming the individuals who drive in our roads, and not looking at systemic reasons?

The Consequences of System-Blindness
Most of the time, blaming individuals means that we can never correct the situation - unless everyone in India becomes a saint, we cannot have a good society. Thus, right away, we have blocked an effort to correct the situation.
Secondly, blaming individuals all the time,means we OVEREMPHASIZE punishment for deviation from our laws - but not enough emphasis is placed on learning. As we saw in the above example, the learning angle of RTOs is entirely lost - we instead concentrate exclusively on regulation by Traffic police.
Thirdly, blaming individuals in the Indian context implies a kind of self-loathing. Most of us must be familiar with this - when you blame a politician (as I did in my post on Rahul Gandhi and the Mumbai Attacks), the instant response is that we have to blame ourselves (one of the comments says that).
I think we are all familiar with this pattern - when Ramalinga Raju was arrested, rediff published an "open letter" from some moron, (the article is here) - in which the guy compared Ramalinga Raju's crimes with people who were not swiping ID cards properly at Satyam. The article ended up saying we all have ourselves to blame.
After the current spate of attacks on Indians in Australia, Outlook has published a highly confused feature article saying "Aren't we racists too?".
The tendency is to spread blame around so generally that we cannot take any action to correct anything.
This "blame ourselves" cry usually comes because people do not differentiate actual crimes against the law from individual moral issues. But it also happens because people fail to realize the interlocking systems we live in and instead focus on individual behavior.

An Example of System Blindness - Indian Politics
One example of system blindness caused the exclusive focus on voting in last parliamentary elections.
There were heavy drives in the English media to go out and vote. Aamir Khan spoke about the importance of voting. When just 45% of Mumbai voted, there were castigations of the public.
What is the logic behind such focus on voting? The prevailing idea, as explained by the movie "Yuva" ("Aayutha Ezhuthu" in Tamil) is this: if we distinguish between good and bad politicians and elect only candidates based on "merit" then we can change the system.
I have a fundamental issue with this idea - it assumes that the current crop of politicians are bad. It thus blames our ills on a group of people's nature.
Most of our politcians are well educated - some of them are lawyers. Do we know if the constituencies of such ostensibly "good" candidates are well developed?
The answer is, of course, that there seems to be uniform ineffectiveness from our legislature, irrespective of the education or sincerity of the representatives.
Why is that?
Secondly, it is close to impossible to fight an entrenched political party's candidate. We think it is possible if everyone votes for the "good" candidate. But it is not easy to figure out a good candidate for anyone. This whole idea may have worked if we were in a community of a hundred people. It will not work in the current scenario.
So, let us take a step back and see what is wrong with the election system:
1. Political parties have zero inner party democracy and have managed to circumvent such democracy requirements. It should be upto political parties to figure out the good candidate - not just the general public.
2. The election process SHOULD FORCE public financing for campaigns - that is the only way to level the playing field so that entrenched parties do not dominate.

Both of the above are NOT going to be solved just by voting. It requires a campaign to change the system. Thus, it is neither the public's fault that we elect "bad" candidates not is it the politicians' fault that they are ineffective. We need to change certain aspects of the political system for any meaningful change.

Why are We System-Blind?
From the reason for Indian IT's focus on services to the emergence of South India as an IT destination to the collapse of Indian sports in the Olympics, everything can generally be explained by looking for systemic faults.
But in this article I seem to be blaming Indians in general for system-blindness - isn't that itself wrong?
There are certain reasons for our overlooking systemic faults. These are:
1. We are a conservative society, till now. One of the hallmarks of a conservative society is assigning blame to individuals for systemic issues. It is a way of looking at the world.
When the current credit crisis started in the United States, American conservatives explained the crisis by blaming it on black and Hispanic households, who could not repay housing loans. That is, they blamed the minorities for overreaching and being greedy.
On the other hand, liberals, who looked at the same crisis, explained it by tracing it from the credit default swap mechanism initiated back in 2000. They linked it to the complex derivative trading rules in Wall Street and even on the way compensation packages worked in the finance industry.
You see the difference? Conservatives blamed individual "attitudes" and liberals blamed ceratin features of the system.
In India, we, as a conservative society, blame individuals more than systems.

2. The second is the cultural reason that I quoted earlier in the article (from Sudhir Kakar). The way the concept of dharma works in Indian society, we are tuned to see individuals operating in dharmic or adharmic mode than systems that offer incentives or disincentives.

There are perfectly rational explanations for the reasons we focus on indviduals - but it is a weakness in our society.
One of the ways to change this focus will be through education. In the long run, if we guide our educational systems towards civic lessons and explain the interlocking economic and political systems that govern us,then we can expect future generations not to play the "blame ourselves" game.
Implementing the 30-year old recommendations of the Police Commission Report or Education Commission report; and cleaning up campaign financing will go longer to establish a sane society.

Update I
When I talk about a "system", I am talking about a set of procedures, laws and other mechanisms that offer incentives and disincentives for people to behave in certain ways. Such an idea of a system is used by economists all the time. The market is one such system. These incentives and disincentives need careful consideration and are not obvious all the time.
A few years back a law was introduced to make Rape punishable by death. Women's activists objected to this law. At first sight, it seems like they should support it because the law would act as a deterrent against rape and hopefully reduce it.
But there is a hidden effect of such a law - it means that a rapist is more likely to kill his victim for fear of exposure. This is the reason why women's groups objected to this law.
Almost all the time, we ARE operating under a set of interlocking systems. We are just blind to this process. I am NOT talking about creating a NEW system, or even a SINGLE system.
Many times what we require are policy tunings to get a desired behavior. Those policy tunings in the public sphere can be effective only if we understand what is being done.
The National Police Comission report was released 30 years back. It talks about separating the state police departments from under the state government (and thus, the ruling party). It talks about creating a separate governing body (like the US Department of Justice). One of the recommendations is that the governing body be a council involving a couple of Opposition party members and retired judges.
Such a tuning would have effectively prevented the abuses we see now from ruling parties. It is obvious, in Tamil Nadu, that Jayalalitha's dragging Karunanidhi from his home at midnight would never have happened if the police was under a separate governing body.
This is what I mean by a systemic knowledge. There is so much analysis done in television and the media during election time; it all focusses on personalities. If going out to vote is important, I think agitating for the implementation of the Police Commission report is more important and will change the system faster.

Update II
One of the main reasons to emphasize systems is that the alternative explanation - that Indian middle class is bad is just a cop-out. That just avoids argument. The explanation is also contrary to common sense - why should Indians behave well abroad and not in India? Further, why do we think that Indians are somehow uniquely corrupt?
It makes more sense that we behave the way we do and our politicians and businesses behave a certain way because that is the way incentives lie.

Being Ultra Rich

The question that has been bothering me for the past few years is this: how can I become ultra-Rich?
To address this, you first have to understand if you are rich or not. The India Together Editor Ashwin Mahesh did some back-of-the-envelope calculations a few years back and wrote that you are rich in India if you have more than Rs.10000 as income per month.
This will be shocking to most people, because we call most people in that range as middle class; actually we call them lower middle class. We definitely did not consider ourselves rich when we were earning Rs.10000 per month.
But in India, the average wage is much lower than Rs.10000 per month. So most of us reading and writing in the internet are already Rich.
But there is an important reason why we do not consider ourselves rich - that is because, we still have to struggle for recognition with millions of other people. So we are Rich, but we do not get some of the SOCIAL benefits of being rich. We are not Unique.

The New Rich

You see, there are two kinds of rich people - we call in Tamil "Pudhu Panakkaaran" - the New Rich and "Paramparai Panakkaran" - the Traditional Rich.
Most of us are the New Rich - I started out with a pay of Rs.2500 in my first job and then reached Nirvana only because I went to the USA. The New Rich people have some money, and want to be respected as Rich. But we still have a long way to go.
How do you know the New Rich? We are the ones hanging out in Pizza Corner, Coffee Day, Barrista, LandMark, Odyssey and all these shops. There is a very very important way these shops are distinguished - in these shops, all the staff talk in English. They have "English" music going - never ordinary Tamil, Hindi movie songs.
You see, the New Rich are trying hard to show that they are Rich; they do this in a variety of ways. One of these ways is to make you feel you are "foreign".
I was browsing books in Odyssey the other day when a staff member walked over and said, "Do you need any help?". I said "No". The guy replied, as a single word, "Looking-for-nothing-in-particular" and walked away. It took me about five minutes to figure out what he said.
So, these shops, the New Rich shops provide an important function in society - they are there essentially for validating that you are, indeed, a Rich guy. They try to make you feel exclusive in a country with a hundred million other people exactly like you.
The staff there know this - they are so uncomfortable with their role, though.
This was brought home to me last week in Barrista. The guy at the cash register frowned at every one of his customers. A family came in and ordered coffee. The guy harassed them with all the stupid questions about coffee - latte, cream on top and all that. The couple gamely answered all the questions, but still could not get RESPECT from the register guy. So, they started complaining that the prices were higher than in the USA and tried to talk about the USA - for the sole purpose of informing the guy they were NRIs. That did not help either. The guy never stopped barking at them.
I was nervously waiting for my turn. I started out asking for coffee in Tamil, asked him a couple of questions about seating upstairs. The problem I have is that I find it difficult to talk in English with other Tamils - it is just not natural.I asked all my questions in Tamil, and the guy probably got offended. He resolutely kept answering in English. Finally I gave up.
When I thought about it later, I realized that all of us customers at Barrista are competing for some respect or distinction because we are the New Rich. Unfortunately, the staff there are aware of that. They know that they hold the power to make or break our Rich egos. So, they exercise that power.
I always find tense, morose staff at Coffee Day, Odyssey and Pizza Corner. The reason is not far to seek - the staff is forced to behave in a cultural context outside of their regular experience. It is somewhat like BPO.

The Ultra-Rich

But how can you truly distinguish yourself in Chennai?
You have to be one of the Ultra Rich traditional panakaarans.
Have you ever walked into the Taj in Chennai? Or Park Sheraton? You talk to them in Tamil, they would reply in Tamil. Right there is a clue of why they are so cool.
We have to realize that there is an unassuming tradition of richness, native to India.
When I was growing up in Tirunelveli, there was a family friend of ours. He would turn up at our home without wearing a chappal, covered in Neem oil and sit by the shoe rack and converse with my dad. Well, he was on the Board of Directors for the Ramco group and owned half the village of Kayathaar.
Again, there was the owner of a private bus transport. This guy would wear a cotton dhoti and white shirt. He would have a "thundu" (towel) bunched up in his hand wherever he went. The guy was a multi millionaire - he owned 10 buses in the Tirunelveli area and was a philanthropist. He donated the gold statue of Thyagaraja currently in Thiruvaiyaaru.
I saw the leader of the TN Congress Party and national King Maker, G.K.Mooppanaar once in Tirunelveli. He was simple as well, although he landed up in a fleet of Benz cars.
There is a tradition of extreme humility (matched many times by conservative ideas) in Indian Ultra-Rich world. Political leaders, Cinema luminaries, Industrialists - many of them operate in a constellation far above ours.
Well, you think they go to Coffee Day? I bet even their grand children don't. They have no need for validation. They are so damn cool, they can walk into the Taj and order curd rice. They are so damn cool, their women do not go to Nalli. Nalli chettiyaar personally delivers hand-designed sarees to their womenfolk.
Right now, I can count a few of these rich families:
1. M.Karunanidhi, Stalin, Maran family
2. Rajinikanth family
3. Saravana Stores family
4. S.Ve Sekhar family
5. Y.G. Parthasarathy family
6. Kamal Hassan-Charu Hassan-Chandra Hassan family
7. Saravana Bhavan family
8. Nalli family
9. AVM family
10. DK Pattammal (Nithyasree) family
11. Sivaji Ganesan family

There are probably hundreds of them, but not thousands. Most of these men and women are recognized only by the others in this exclusive club.

My Ultra-Rich Fantasy

I have a fantasy about belonging to this club.
In my fantasy, housemaids and gardeners and drivers abound in our home - none of them ever quit. Even if they do, I do not have to personally worry about finding their replacement.
In my fantasy, the hall in the house is enormous; has two staircases going round - like the houses in old Sivaji, MGR movies.
In my fantasy, the driver drives me and my wife upto Vummidi Bangaru Jewellers (VBJ) and parks in the back. Someone goes in and informs the manager. They come running out. My wife gets samples delivered to the car. Meanwhile I am munching fried cashewnuts and contemplating the expansion of my immense business house.
In my fantasy, I don't talk much.
In my fantasy, I buy Barrista and Odyssey.

Ok, the cooker whistle is going like a siren, I got to go.

Translation for Tamil short story 2

I don't like to translate my Tamil stories, for a good reason. I tried writing some English short stories at one point, long back, and they all came out stilted and artificial. I am fluent in the English language, but I seem to write stories better in Tamil, and articles better in English.
But a couple of people have asked for translations to the two stories in this blog. Here is a translation for the second story, linked here.

A very brief discussion on women's liberation
-------------------------------------------------------
By, Ramiah Ariya

Raghu looked at his watch. His friends at work were visiting for the first time. He was excited about the visit.
Along with his wife, Prema, he had tried to find a movie to watch for the evening. They had succeeded in settling on a "family" movie finally. Still, it had an "item" number.
"When they arrive, you don't have to take the women in and discuss sarees and jewelry," said Raghu.
"Don't bother about what we discuss", said Prema.
"Why don't you discuss something useful?"
"Why? You think guys have an intellectual conversation?" asked Prema.
"There are so many subjects - the country is going to the dogs; society is corrupt. I like to talk about something useful", said Raghu.
"You only end up fighting when you discuss such topics", said Prema.
"No. We won't. We will manage an illuminating conversation, so even you will be interested", said Raghu.

After the movie was over, there was a brief silence. Raghu decided to initiate a meaningful, stimulating discussion.
"What do you think of women going to work, as they do in this movie?" he asked.
The men glared at him. The women looked at their husbands for a reply.
"I love watching Vadivelu getting beaten up", said Varun.
"I know..it never gets old", said Gandhi.
"Why don't you answer his question?" said Varun's wife.
"What question?"
Raghu repeated his question.
"Oh yeah...hmmmm...nothing wrong with it if they have talent", said Gandhi.
"I am sure you have lots of 'talent'.." said his wife.
"Historically, they usually say that the man is for work and the woman is meant to be at home.." said Gandhi.
"Who said that? Nobody said that...do you know the guy who said it?"
Gandhi said, "I am sure Varun knows that guy. Leave me alone".

Raghu wanted to steer the discussion to be more fruitful. He said, "So as long as the woman is talented, you are fine with it?"
"First of all why are you questioning me? Why don't you answer your own question? Is it right or wrong for women to work?"
Raghu decided this was a God-given opportunity to talk for the next half hour and showcase his deep intellect.
"According to the United Nations, women constitute fifty percent of the world's population. But they perform seventy five percent of the work"
"Who? My wife?" asked Varun
"Yes"
"No she doesn't"
"Let him speak", said Varun's wife.
"Alright, enough with the United Nations. How about your home?" asked Gandhi.
Prema said, "Exactly."
Raghu glared at her and said, "We should not talk about each other's homes. Statistics say that.."
Gandhi intercepted him and said, "Prema, why don't you tell us. Is Raghu supportive at home?"
"Friday evening he comes back from work and sits in front of the TV. He gets up again only on Monday morning".
Everyone laughed at this.
Gandhi said,"Yes, but what do you expect. He deals only with the United Nations.."
Raghu said, with growing irritation, "My point is, why can't women with talent work?"
"Just a second", said Gandhi's wife.
"Yeah?"
"Are you saying that women who stay at home are not talented?"
"I...I did not say that..."
"Or is it true that all of you guys who work are extremely talented?" she continued.
Raghu looked around for support.
"If you are so talented how come you don't have a car?"
The room went silent. Raghu desperately looked at Prema for help. She seemed to be laughing inside. He decided to deflect attention.
"No, I said that only because Varun said a man is meant for work"
"I did not say that...Gandhi said that".
Gandhi, cornered, said, without any reason, " I actually respect Kiran Bedi a lot".
Varun's wife said, "If we were all Kiran Bedis, you guys would not have a free run"

At this point, Prema interrupted. "Do you want to watch Friends?"
Raghu shot her an irritated look. Why did she always block his ideas from blossoming? They would start with Friends, move on to Lost and end up discussing sarees and jewelry. He had so many ideas on women's liberation. Even the women did not seem to be too interested in their own liberation.
"Shut up" he said, to Prema.
Then he turned to the others and said, "Now, would you like me to summarize all of the discussion points?"
"NO", they all yelled in chorus.
Raghu did not give up. He continued, "I wanted to cover another, very important angle of this interesting topic".
"I think we should leave", said Varun to Gandhi.
" No, hold on. As men, how can we help women achieve their objectives?"
Varun got up and said, "We will submit an essay tomorrow."
"But don't you think women suffer because of us?"
"They don't suffer as much as we do because of your speeches"
Varun's wife interceded and said, "Poor Varun does not make me suffer. He is nice"
"Did you hear that?" said Varun.

"In that case, why are we not ready to send women to work?"
Varun said, "You are lecturing all of us...why isn't Prema taking a job?"
"Oh..we should not discuss personal issues. Abstractly speaking, my hypothetical question is.."
"Prema..why don't you tell us. Why aren't you going to work?"
Raghu interrupted and said, "She attended an interview. She answered the questions wrong and they did not recruit. So, I said no after that."
"I did not answer anything wrong", said Prema.
Varun's wife said, "So, it was just one interview? Varun here attended ten different interviews and then finally we had to promise tonsuring his head for Venkatachalapathi. "
"Yes..tell that to everyone. Very mature" said Varun.
Raghu said, "No, it is not that way. I am just asking her to prepare well. If she attends interviews in all these companies and fails, I would lose my reputation."
"So you are not letting her go for the sake of your reputation?"
Raghu became confused. He said, "If there is a good opportunity, I will send her."
Gandhi's wife said, "Why do you keep saying you will 'send her'? If we get a degree after marriage, you say 'I let her go to school'. If we go to a job, 'I sent her for a job'. We can do things by ourselves."
"Ok..I will send her".
"Why are you repeating that?"
Gandhi said, "Come on Raghu. You cannot do this just because she failed a single interview. Don't keep her locked up at home".
Raghu looked around. Everyone was staring at him.

"I think it is time for watching Friends. Prema, can you switch on the tv?"

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

It does seem weird reading this in English. Let me know.

Tamil Short Story - 2

I wrote the following story recently. It continues with the husband-wife characters Raghu and Prema, first written here. Let me know if you like it.

பெண் விடுதலை வேண்டும்!
----------------------------------
இரா. இராமையா

ரகு மணி பார்த்தான். முதன் முறையாக வீட்டுக்கு அலுவலக நண்பர்கள் வருகிறார்கள். அவனுக்குப் படபடப்பாக இருந்தது.
மிகவும் சிரமப்பட்டு பார்ப்பதற்க்கு ஒரு குடும்பப் படம் தேர்ந்தெடுத்து இருந்தார்கள். அதிலும் நடுவில் ஒரு குத்து டான்ஸ் இருந்தது.
"அவங்க வந்தவுடன உள்ள கூட்டிப் போய் புடவை, நகைன்னு பேச வேண்டாம்" , என்றான் ரகு.
"நாங்க ஏதோ பேசிக்கறோம். உங்களுக்கென்ன ?" என்றாள் பிரேமா.
"கொஞ்சம் உபயோகப்படற மாதிரி எதுனா பேச மாட்டீங்களா ?" என்றான் ரகு.
பிரேமா நிதானத்துடன், "ஏன்? நீங்கள்ளாம் ரொம்ப அறிவு பூர்வமா தான் பேசுவீங்களோ?" என்றாள்.
"எவ்வளவோ சப்ஜெக்ட் இருக்கு. நாட்டு நிலைமை, சமுதாயம் இப்பிடி கேவலமா இருக்கு. எனக்கு அப்பிடிப் பேசத் தான் பிடிக்கும்."
"அதெல்லாம் பேசினா சண்டை தான் வரும்."
"வராது. உன் மரமண்டைக்குப் புரியுற மாதிரி இன்னைக்குப் பேசுறோம் பாரு."

படம் முடிந்து சிறிது நேரம் மெளனமாக இருந்தார்கள். ரகு, அர்த்தபூர்வமான வகையில் அறிவைத் தூண்டும் ஒரு விவாதத்தை தொடங்க முடிவு செய்தான்.
"அந்தப் படத்துல வர மாதிரி பெண்கள் வேலைக்கு போறது பத்தி என்ன நினைக்கறீங்க?" என்றான்.
இரு ஆண்களும் அவனை முறைத்தார்கள். மனைவிகள் தங்கள் கணவர்களை ஆவலுடன் பார்த்தார்கள்.
"வடிவேலு அடி வாங்கறதே ஒரு அழகு", என்றான் வருண்.
"எவ்வளவு முறை பார்த்தாலும் அலுக்காது", என்றான் காந்தி.
"அவரு கேட்டதுக்குப் பதில் சொல்லுங்க", என்றாள் வருணின் மனைவி.
"என்ன கேட்டான்?"
ரகு மறுபடித் தன் கேள்வியைக் கேட்டான்.
"ஒ ..அதுவா? வந்து...நல்ல டேலன்ட் இருந்தா என்ன தப்பு?" என்றான் காந்தி.
"ஏன்...நீங்கள்ளாம் ரொம்ப டேலன்டோ ?" என்றாள் அவன் மனைவி.
"வரலாறு பூர்வமா பார்த்தா நாட்டுக்கு ஆணு , வீட்டுக்குப் பெண்ணுன்னு வைச்சான்", என்றான் காந்தி.
அவன் மனைவி விடாமல், "எவனும் வைக்கல.. வச்சவன உங்களுக்குத் தெரியுமா?" என்றாள்.
காந்தி, "வருணுக்குத் தெரியும். என்ன ஆள விடுங்க", என்றான்.
ரகு விவாதத்தைச் சற்றுப் பயனுள்ளதாக்கும் பொருட்டு, "அப்போ டேலன்ட் இருந்தா தப்பு இல்லன்ற?" என்றான்.
"டேய்..நீ என்ன பெரிய சாலமன் பாப்பையாவா? நீ சொல்லேன். வேலைக்குப் போறது தப்பா , ரைட்டா? "
ரகு இதைச் சாக்கு வைத்து அரை மணி நேரம் பேசலாம் என்று முடிவெடுத்தான்.
"ஐ.நா சபையோட ரிபோர்ட்படி பார்த்தா பெண்கள் உலகத்துல ஐம்பது சதவிகிதம். ஆனா எழுபத்தி ஐந்து சதவிகிதம் வேலை அவங்க தான் பாக்குறாங்க"
"யாரு...இவளா?" என்றான் வருண்.
"ஆமா"
"கிழிச்சா"
"ஹலோ அவரைப் பேச விடுங்க".
"டேய்.. ஐ.நா சபையெல்லாம் இதுல இழுக்காத...உங்க வீட்டுல எப்பிடி?"
"கரெக்ட்" என்றாள் பிரேமா.
ரகு அவளை முறைத்தான்.
"ஸீ ..எங்க வீடு, உங்க வீடுன்னெல்லாம் பேசக் கூடாது. ஸ்டாடிஸ்டிக்ஸ்படி பார்த்தா...."
"நீ சொல்லு பிரேமா. இவன் வீட்டுல எப்பிடி?"
"வெள்ளிக்கிழமை சாயங்காலம் வந்து லுங்கியக் கட்டி டி.வி முன்னாடி உக்கர்ந்தாருன்னா திங்கள் காலையில தான் எந்திரிப்பாரு."
எல்லோரும் ஹோ..ஹோ என்று சிரித்தார்கள்.
"அவன் நம்ம லெவலே கிடையாது. ஐ.நா சபை லெவல் அவன். " என்றான் காந்தி.
ரகு கடுகடுப்புடன், "என்னோட பாயின்ட் என்னன்னா..காந்தி சொன்ன மாதிரி டேலன்ட் உள்ள பெண்கள் வேலை பாக்கறதுல என்ன தப்பு?" என்றான்.
"ஒரு நிமிஷம்", என்றாள் காந்தியின் மனைவி.
"என்ன?"
"வேலைக்குப் போகாதவங்களுக்கு டேலன்ட் இல்லையா?"
"அதுவா? அது நான் அப்பிடி சொல்லலியே.." என்றான் ரகு.
"இல்ல நீங்கள்ளாம் டேலன்ட்டோட தான் வேலை பாக்கறீங்களா?"
ரகு பரிதாபமாக விழித்தான்.
காந்தி, "விடுறி", என்றான்.
"அவ்வளவு டேலன்ட் இருந்தா ஒரு கார் வாங்க வேண்டியது தான?"
சட்டென்று அமைதி நிலவியது. ரகு, பிரேமா உதவிக்கு வருவாள் என்று நினைத்து அவளைப் பார்த்தான். அவளோ வாயைப் பொத்திக் கொண்டு சிரிப்பது போல இருந்தாள். கிராதகி.
"இல்ல..வருண் நாட்டுக்கு ஆணுன்னு சொன்னதுக்குத் தான் நான் சொன்னேன்".
"நான் அப்பிடி சொல்லல. காந்தி தான் சொன்னான்."
காந்தி, சம்பந்தமே இல்லாமல் , "எனக்குக் கூட கிரண் பேடியை ரொம்ப பிடிக்கும்", என்று சொல்லித் தப்பிக்க முயற்சி செய்தான்.
வருணின் மனைவி, "நாங்கல்லாம் கிரண் பேடி மாதிரி இருந்தா நீங்கள்ளாம் காலி", என்றாள்.

பிரேமா, திடீரென்று "கோலங்கள் சீரியல் பார்த்தீங்களா?" என்றாள்.

ரகுவுக்கு எரிச்சல் வந்தது. அவனுடைய கருத்துக்களை அவள் ஏன் எப்போதும் தடுக்கிறாள்? இப்படிக் கோலங்கள் , அரசி என்று போய் புடவை நகையில் முடிப்பார்கள். அவன் பெண்கள் விடுதலை பற்றி ஏகப்பட்ட யோசனைகள் வைத்திருந்தான். பெண்களுக்கே அவர்கள் விடுதலை பற்றி பேச விருப்பமில்லை!

"சும்மா கிட", என்றான் பிரேமாவைப் பார்த்து.
பிறகு மற்றவர்களைப் பார்த்து, "நாம் இது வரைக்கும் பேசினதைத் தொகுத்து சொல்லவா?" என்றான்.
"வேண்டாம்", என்றார்கள் எல்லோரும் கோரஸாக.
ரகு விடாமல், "அப்ப சரி ...நான் இந்த சப்ஜெக்டோட முக்கியமான இன்னொரு கோணத்தைப் பற்றிப் பேசணும்னு நினைக்கறேன்" என்றான்.
"அப்ப கிளம்பலாமா?" என்றான் வருண், காந்தியைப் பார்த்து.
"இல்ல இருங்க. ஆண்களா நாம பெண்கள் விடுதலைக்கு என்ன செய்யலாம்?"
என்றான் ரகு.
"ஒரு பக்கக் கட்டுரை எழுதி நாளைக்குக் கொண்டு வரோம்", என்று எழுந்து நின்றான் வருண்.
ரகு பரபரப்புடன், "நம்பளால பெண்கள் அவதிப் படறாங்கன்னு உனக்குத் தோணலியா?" என்றான்.
"உன்னால நாங்க அவதிப்படரத விடவா?"
வருணின் மனைவி, "சே சே ..வருணால அவதியெல்லாம் எதுவும் கிடையாது..பாவம்", என்றாள்.
வருண், "கேட்டியாடா", என்றான்.
"அப்ப பெண்களை வேலைக்கு அனுப்ப நாம ஏன் தயாராயில்லை?" என்றான் ரகு.

வருண், "இவ்வளோ பேச்சுப் பேசறியே..நீ ஏன் ப்ரேமாவ வேலைக்கு அனுப்பல?" என்றான்.
ரகு திடுக்கிட்டு, "நாம பெர்சனலா பேசக் கூடாது", என்றான்.
"பிரேமா.. நீ சொல்லு. இவன் ஏன் உன்னை வேலைக்கு அனுப்பல", என்றான் காந்தி.
ரகு குறுக்கிட்டு, "அவ ஒரு இன்டெர்வியு போனா. அதுல தப்புத் தப்பா பதில் சொல்லியிருக்கா. அவன் எடுக்கல. அதான் நான் வேணாம்னு சொன்னேன்", என்றான்.
"நான் தப்பா ஒண்ணும் பதில் சொல்லல", என்றாள் பிரேமா.
வருணின் மனைவி, " ஒரு இண்டெர்வியுல தான எடுக்கல? தோ..இவரு பத்து இன்டெர்வியு பெயிலாகி அப்புறம் திருப்பதிக்கு மொட்டை வேண்டித் தான் இந்த வேலை கிடைச்சுது", என்றாள்.
வருண், " ஆமா. ரொம்ப அவசியம். எல்லார் கிட்டயும் சொல்லு", என்றான்.
ரகு, "அப்பிடி இல்ல...நல்லா படிச்சிட்டுப் போனு சொல்லறேன். எனக்குத் தெரிஞ்ச கம்பனில எல்லாம் போயி தப்புத் தப்பா பதில் சொன்னா எனக்குத் தானே கெட்ட பேரு," என்றான்.
வருணின் மனைவி, "அப்போ உங்க மானத்துக்காக அவளை போக விடுறதில்லையா?" என்றாள்.
ரகு குழப்பத்துடன், " நல்ல வேலையா இருந்தா நானே அனுப்பி வைப்பேன்", என்றான்.
காந்தியின் மனைவி, "முதல்ல நீங்க என்ன அனுப்புறது? எங்களுக்கே போகத் தெரியாதா? நாங்க ஏதாவது படிச்சா 'படிக்க வச்சேன்'னு சொல்லிக்கிறது. நாங்க வேலைக்குப் போனா அனுப்பி வச்சேன்றது", என்றாள்.
ரகு, "சரி..நான் அனுப்பி வக்கறேன்", என்றான்.
"மறுபடியும் அப்பிடியே சொல்லறீங்க?"
காந்தி, "கமான் ரகு. ஒரு இண்டெர்வியுல பெயிலானதுக்கு நீ இப்பிடிச் செய்யக் கூடாது. வீட்டுக்குள்ளயே ஏன் அடைச்சு வைக்கறே?" என்றான்.
ரகு எல்லோரும் தன்னையே பார்ப்பதை உணர்ந்தான்.

"பிரேமா..கோலங்கள் போடு...டைம் ஆச்சு.." என்றான்.

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

HR vs Technical Staff in Neeya Naana

First I want you to take a look at the photograph of the guy in the picture. He was a participant on the HR side in the Vijay TV talk-and-debate show Neeya Naana. This guy made an idiotic and thoroughly dangerous claim against employing women. He made it on television and was recorded (the video clip in YouTube was removed because of copyright issues). No one challenged him. The host said the participant "was bringing up good points". The rest of this post is about the implications of such claims and some comments on Human Resources managers in that show.
Most of what I write applies only to the offensive HR managers on that show. I have known some pretty good HR managers and I am not generalizing my comments.

Transcript of the Offending Clip

Gopinath, the Host: But there are companies which ask, in HR interviews, if a lady candidate plans to have a baby. This is a really bad rights violation.

The man in the photograph, HR: But what is wrong with that? (at opposite side) Will you work with such a person in a project? The project just won't work. We are interested in the well-being of the project. In fact, let me ask - will you work without a salary? I won't either. Management is concerned about profit. What is wrong with that?

Host: You are bringing up some good points. But aren't you concerned about employee's welfare?

Some background on that debate
As I said, the show's clip has been removed from YouTube. But the debate was very acrimonious. There was no common ground between the two sides. There was a lot of yelling, particularly from the HR side.
The highlights were:
1. HR started talking about fake certificates. They said this was a major problem and the host accepted it at face value.
2. They all kept coming back to layoffs. The HR side insisted that only poor performers were being laid off. I have no doubt one morning they woke up and found out that there were hundreds of poor performers in their company. What a shock! It had nothing to do with the economy or how their management planned poorly. It was the middle class programmers who are the problem!
3. In the end they brought in two "experts". The experts were a CTO guy and another HR guy himself. The HR "expert" said employees were spending too much. That was the problem, the host agreed. The employees had suddenly found money and were spending too much. When they lost their money, they blamed HR!!! In fact the host concluded the show by asking employess to spend less. No comment on companies which went nuts with hiring anticipating 1000% growth prospects.
4. The HR "expert" also said "we should blame ourselves" in this economy. When someone says "blame ourselves" what they mean is they are blaming everybody but themselves. Very common trick in India to start saying "we should blame ourselves". Ramalinga Raju steals money and gets caught!! Let us start blaming oursleves!
5. The CTO guy said every employee should think about how they would behave if they were a business owner themselves. That is, of course a neat trick itself. There are hundreds of books on why that is exactly the wrong thing to do. If every middle class guy started "imagining what he would support and oppose if he was a business owner" then he/she would end up just hurting themselves. I thought being a learned CTO, this guy would know that employees and business owners have opposing interests. That is why labor law is needed in the first place. For example, a business owner will love bonded labor - an employee, not so much.
6. A supercilious women on the HR side said employees were not hiding their cigarettes when she passed them by outside office. I am glad she did not want them to bend down and salute her.
7. In the end everyone agreed that the employees were spending too much; that only bad performers were being laid off; that HR were doing their best. No one objected or brought up again the critical issue raised by the HR guy in the photo: that companies need to find out if a woman plans to have a baby, and reserve the right to reject them on that grounds.

The Voice of the Powerful
Sometime back I wrote a post describing how corporations' point of views are heavily represented in media. This debate show is an example of that. It makes me so angry to realise how much powerful people get away with. We say that politicians abuse power. But abuse of power is a DEFINING characteristic of the Indian systems. The HR guys in this show have no problem questioning rights which were hard won by labor and have become part of law for the last 50 years. And they get away with it.
The employees side was pathetic - they were completely outmanouevred by the HR worthies. The whole arguments about fake certificates and bad performers was brought up simply to insult the employees sitting opposite to them. In fact, watching the show, it was hard to shake off the feeling that we were watching the age old fight in India between oppressive upper classes, all well-fed and bloated with their power, representing HR; while the lower classes were cowering at their allegations on the employees side.
None of the employees brought up very obvious legal issues - what the guy in the photograph said was illegal, and if his company is following such practices of questioning reproductive habits, they can be shut down.
The reason I feel enraged is because bad talking points are pushed by corporations and their representative lackeys all the time ; and they are repeated again and again across the media spectrum. And they become common wisdom.
Why did the economy come down?
IT employees spent too much and prepared fake certificates
Why are companies laying off thousands?
Because they are all bad performers.

We badly need an IT employee's union which can push back such talking points in public at least.

The rest of this post will be a debunking of some of these talking pints.

Talking Point I - HR vs Employees
First of all the show should never have been titled "HR vs Employees". The assumption was that HR is somewhat different than employees. This is a big psychological issue - the corporate structure in India is structured around power instead of utility and convenience. In the United States HR plays a very different role. In fact, a HR manager in the United States will be the last person to make a comment about employing women.
In India HR has become compliant lackeys who would do the management's dirty work for them. The reason it works well is because HR knows the law. Most employees do not know their rights.
In the corporate structure in India, executive management needs to be distinguished from other management areas - for example, the Administration department is called Facilities Management. This does not mean that admin staff are managers who can mess with other people.
Project management means you manage IT projects. That does not mean that you run the company.
Similarly Human Resources Management means you manage employee's welfare. You are NOT in charge of profit making. In fact, your role is to guide Executive management to avoid excesses and treat employees fairly.
By calling the show "HR vs Employees" the show hosts implied that Human Resources staff themselves are somehow special. In reality, the company is run by executive management (CTO, COO, CEO, CFO). The decisions that they feel squeamish about are handed over to a HR manager who then assumes that he has a role in profit making.

In exchange for the illusory "power" they get from executive management, HR managers end up doing the opposite of their jobs. And they, true to Indian tradition, abuse the power too. I will explain later why this is bad for long-term health of a company.
This distinction, that they are NOT "management" management was lost on most people in the debate show. They sought to speak on behalf of executive management themselves - a job they are not qualified to do.

Talking Point -2 - Bad performers are laid off
This argument is plain offensive and I see it repeated again and again only in India. The recession has caused massive layoffs in the USA. I do not see ANY companies in America insulting their former employees and calling them bad performers. They know that they will be sued off their money if they claimed as such.
The reason HR continues to peddle this nonsense is because they think no one can reliably respond to this charge. Who wants to come out and say, "I was laid off and I performed my job well"?
The idea that absolute "performance" can be somehow magically figured out in a medium-sized company by HR, of all people, is hilarious. HR has NO clue about project performance. It is surprising that they are defending this issue. The layoff process does not START with HR. It comes from executive management to the account managers or bench managers. These managers then make lists. Almost all the time, the list contains non-billable resources. The key concept here is this - the company has ALREADY started losing clients. Thus the COMPANY is the entity performing poorly. Nobody does mass layoffs of "non-performing" resources when clients are paying money for those resources.
HR gets into the process very late. All that they get is a list and a request to "manage" the layoffs.
So, that is ALL that they have to say: we get lists and we do the dirty work. Don't blame us. Instead, here they are, covering for their bosses and pretending they run a company. Power corrupts indeed.
A layoff is different from a firing. When a company faces major shortfalls in profits and loss of clients, they need to shed some of their employees. Companies cut entire departments. That does not mean everyone in that department is a "bad performer".
Atleast the government should make this dictinction obvious (it DOES exist in labor law in India). TCS, IBM and many other companies have got away with calling everyone a bad performer but themselves.
How can a capitalist society function sanely when companies refuse to obey the law and insist on an agreesive offense on labor?
By the way, these were the same companies which kept screaming "loyalty" and promoted that as a virtue - when the times got tough for them, they have not only laid off their loyal employees, they also insult them by calling them bad performers.

Talking Point - 3 - HR has right to ask personal questions such as likelihood of pregnancy
Finally, I would like to address HR guy in the photo and explain why he is wrong and causes harm to his company.
In India, when you say something against the law, it does not seem to matter much. It somehow does not seem to impress people that a "point-of-view" is against the law. The reason is an attitude that considers law as a flexible guideline; in a country where powerful people get away, literally, with murder, this is not surprising.
Thus we see the photo-HR-guy talking about a point of view and say, "what is wrong with that". The first thing that is wrong, is of course, that discrimination based on reproductive habits is against the law. A candidate can succefully sue a company for asking questions about future pregnancy or current pregnancy.
Secondly, the argument "management needs profit; will you work without a pay" is completely a false choice. The counter is if he is willing to go to jail or pay a fine for discrimination. By his logic, management can violate the law as long as they are having a profit out of it. This is a dangerous argument - by that logic you should be able to beat up people for leaving a company, because from the management's "point-of-view" people should stay in their company. It is very irritating to hear this "point-of-view" arguments from corporate jalras. They are implying that a company is some kind of super-legal entity, having the power to do anything as long as they are "creating jobs" ( a new buzz word these days).
Remember the Mani Rathnam movie "Guru"? The "Guru" justifies violating the law because he wanted India to grow. It is just convenient that he made lots of money in that process. He also caused the failure of other competitive businessmen who actually followed the law; but that is fine as long as India is growing.
I am tired of this kind of false arguments about "utility" from corporations. The common citizen is forced to follow the law. He is punished heavily for even perceived violations. Meanwhile corporations continue to claim that they are "creating jobs" and violate laws constantly. Why doesn't the law apply to them?

But I am guessing that the above two arguments won't impress our photo-HR-guy. So, let me explain a third reason why he is wrong - his "idea" of not employing women who are likely to get pregnant will entirely shut down his company eventually, if implemented.
I have interviewed more than thousand candidates for technical positions. That HR guy, I am sure, has not. It is very hard finding right people for technical jobs as it is. The idea that you can just eliminate 50% of the candidates (because they are young women) and then try to fill positions in a tech company is just ridiculous. The HR guy thinks qualified people are infinitely available. Let me assure you, they are not. We cannot afford to eliminate people based on gender, disability, age or region. It just limits the talent pool and makes it very hard to compete with other companies.
This is, in fact, ONE of the reasons laws exist. Labor laws are not cruel rules imagined by communists so that noble businessmen would suffer. Ultimately they promote fairness in a society and that fairness helps the society in the LONG TERM.
That HR guy, in fact, makes the crucial mistake of making decisions about things he is not qualified to - as I said above, HR is not in charge of profit making (for a good reason). When he actually imagines that he, somehow, is promoting the profits of a company, he is only acting in a short-term perspective. That is natural because he is NOT trained to run a profit-center. But he is so power-drunk that he assumes that his "ideas" about project staffing apply to the whole company - they don't. I really hope his company is not listening to him, for their own sake.

This is also the reason we should not accept when politicians or businessmen insist that they violated laws for other people's benefits or for the nation's welfare. Following the rule of law is the best way to guarantee success - not cowboy ideas about eliminating women from the competition.

Airtel Super Singer

(Updated below)
Update I:
For those of you landing up on my blog pages for the first time _ I write on issues of politics, culture and society. Please check out some of my featured posts on the left navigation bar. You can follow me on Twitter (left nav) or click on the "Follow" link in the left nav. In the bottom of this page is the "Subscribe" link through which you can get updates on your RSS reader.
Do not forget to visit my blog home page and read some of my posts in the last month.
Thanks for visiting. Please keep returning atleast once a month.

Original post below:
I have been watching this show on Vijay TV for the last 8 months. I also follow other talent shows in the North such as SaReGaMa; and have watched Pakistan's "Sangeet Icon" show.
At this point the finals are running and some interesting questions have risen - Super Singer's current edition being one of the most popular.

Performance vs Musical ability
The reality shows emphasize performance on stage along with pure singing. They also make the performances attractive by themes (such as patriotism) and specific costumes.
I have seen even judges (such as Vani Jayaram) question such performance based shows. The reason is, of course, that Indian music's ideal is when the singer can express emotions completely through their voice. In classical music shaking your head to bring out "gamakam" (the peculiar curving of Indian music) is banned. Indian art traditionally tries to simulate a half-merged state between the sub-conscious and the ego - and therefore immersion in Indian music requires minimum distractions by the singer's actions.
Singers such as P.Susheela and Jesudas were famous for this - they showed no outward emotion while their voices expressed maximum pathos or romance.
But the reality shows are based on American Idol style rendering. They seek to entertain their audience, so they require the singers to perform wildly. These performances are usually confined to faster songs or "Kuthu" style songs. Along with it, the singers are encouraged to show lots of emotion even while singing softer, melody songs.
But in the case of Super Singer, the end goal is to produce a play back singer. The idea is not to create a showman (as Indian Idol does) but to select a voice and singer who is best suited for employment in play-back singing.
Thus even though Super Singer borrows all of its entertaining elements from other talent shows to the North and West, its prize (a singing stint with music director Yuvan Shankar Raja) is at odds with its selection process.
Why does this matter? We will see below.

The Super-Singers
The current batch is very talented and they have evolved over the last nine months. The singer Ravi, who has the best grasp of classical singing has already won on SS music channel. But as the show has progressed he has been found to be a great singer of semi-classical or old songs. His voice has an amazing range but I do not think it is best suited for play-back singing. He can run his own band.
The singer Ajesh is the youngest of them. He has a very casual way of singing and his voice changes between higher and lower scales(which is sometimes disturbing). He is talented, no question there, and could win.
The singer Ranjani, is one of the most sincere and confident singers I have seen on this show. She killed in the final rounds. Her voice is a boon and sounds very well in higher and lower ranges.
The singer Prasanna - I initially liked him. He has a very good adaptable voice. His song delivery (particularly "Shambo Shiva Shambo" from Ninaithaale Inikkum) was amazing. But somewhere along the line he seems to have lost his moorings. He tries excessive drama and has been annoying and embarassing to watch. I will return to him later.

The singer Renu is my favorite. She has been consistent, even though she does not have a background in classical music. Her voice is absolutely soaked in honey. Her songs such as "Unna Vida" from Virumaandi; "Saami Kitta"; "Ninaithu Ninaithu Paarthen" from 7G Rainbow Colony are unforgettable. I think she has the most unique and cinematically suited voice of the lot.

[Not in this list, one of the singers, Vijay deserved respect, but was eliminated from the finals. He was passionate about music and he could sing Bryan Adams or Hariharan's Gazals with ease. He was better at Hindi and English songs than Tamil. He does not belong in talent shows - he should run his own band.)

Thus, if I were to choose simply for the purpose of their utility, I would choose Renu - she has the ideal voice for play back singing. But as we will see, that is not just the determinant here.

The Mass Voting Process
I remember the show SaReGaMa, the unquestioned king of music talent shows in India. During the late 90s SaReGaMa was not run as a reality show. A set of judges chose the winner. A few years back that changed; the voting system came in.
Since the voting system came in to music talent shows, there have been many controversies. At one point Indian Idol contestants and the audience fought with each other, because one of the singers, Debojit was getting all the votes from East India. There were campaigns to vote for him from Assam to Bengal and that year's Indian Idol was one of the worst.
A certain set of music lovers believe that the voting system is open to such pulls and prejudices that have nothing to do with music. For example, some of the best singers in the shows such as "Junoon - Kuch Kar ke.." (Akbar Ali and Ali Abbas), SaReGaMa (Amanat Ali) and SaReGaMa Little Champs (Ameer Hafeez) have been eliminated for no good obvious reason. It is suspicious that Pakistanis and Muslims are routinely eliminated from Indian talent shows. To me, it seems possible that prejudice is at play.
In the case of Super Singer, there is no such room for prejudice; all the singers are actually from the same background. But Prasanna, the singer I mentioned before, was eliminated by a judge (Unni Menon) and then brought back in by the voting system. When he was "reselected" he mentioned that he targeted "popular" performances mainly because he knew people would then vote for him. This was a smart move - being an "entertainer" he calculated that he would get more votes from the public than from the judges. Thus while the judges repeatedly criticised his "drama", he stands a very likely chance of winning the Super Singer contest.

Purely as a game show. Prasanna's move is smart and focussed. But the result may not be of utility value - I do not think that he has such a unique voice for playback singing as compared to the current crop of talented singers. Thus while the Super Singer contest may select a good performer, by no means does that help Yuvan Shankar Raja.
What is the ultimate goal of a music talent show? The voting public may consider the show from a bang-for-buck or Paisa-Vasool kind of angle. They do not end up selecting the best, most versatile musician. There is a disconnect between the show's purpose as seen by different "stakeholders":
1. The corporate show organizers consider it an effective way to increase the channel's popularity. They are not specifically interested in contribution to the music world.
2. The contestants, of course, see it as a game with a prize and so try to win.
3. The voting public consider the show a popular search for musical talent, and therefore vote for the person they would like to hear more.
4. Poor Yuvan Shankar Raja, meanwhile, is looking for a good play back voice.
5. A small minority, of course, see this as a genuine opportunity for music to be enriched and look forward, not to a single winner, but a collection of stars. This minority is somewhat "knowledgeable" about music and are passionate about it.

If you take a step back, this is no different from the questions raised by our nation's election process itself. Different groups act in self-interest and hope to have an outcome desirable to themselves. If nobody is "gaming" the system, then such a popular voting contest will eventually succeed in finding good talent. But there is a difference between a somewhat objective search for administrative talent and a subjective search for a good artist.

My core question is this: is the system of selection by a voting public (in a music talent show or any art show) better or worse than a system in which a few judges pick the winner?
It is a very political question - and it relates to recent ideas such as crowdsourcing.
Is popularity a good measure of talent in art?
Is popular art better art?


Meanwhile, below is Ameer Hafeez singing Laaga Chunari Mein Daag (starts at 1:52). He was eliminated in that show:

Quick Note on Narmadha Dam

I have always wondered about this - that the Narmadha Dam issue has been projected as a fight between capitalism, development one side; and the anti-developmental forces of leftists on the other.
Purely from a theoretical perspective, private property is sacred and inviolate in capitalist society. In fact the origins of modern forms of government were based on the question of the guarantee for private property. What I mean by private property is the rights of a human living in peace to hold property without threat of confiscation. In medieval days, such property was held to be liable for confiscation by the King. It is to stop such violations on indviduals that Magna Carta was signed.
In a capitalistic society the rights of an individual holding private property is inviolate. On the other hand Communism demands the placing of all private property under the central planning authority, for public good.
This is one of the fundamental differences between capitalism and communism.
Yet, in the Narmadha dam issue, the private property of Adivasis (who are granted such rights by the Consititution) is being confiscated by the government, by exercising its power. And the cheerleaders for the Gujarat government call it development work of capitalism.
The people fighting against such confiscation and who seek to protect the rights of private property, such as Medha Patkar are, instead, called as Communists and holders of a failed philosophy.
The irony of it never seems to amaze me. Capitalism means, in our country, whatever the kings will. The kings shall take from us when they want, in the name of development.
"The real object of all Despotism is revenue" - Tom Paine

Religion and Science - a debate

(Update - Smitha replied)
Background
I recently wrote a blog on Science Education in India. In that blog I mentioned that rationalist movements are not effective and that their mission is a failure.
In comments, one of my frequent commenters, Smitha, challenged this statement. He also pointed out (read his comments here) that rationalist movements have precedent and that faith needs to be challenged as an obstacle to progress.
I have no big problems with faith, although I do not believe in God. I am an atheist, but I do not consider religion a threat. Since I wanted to explain my point of view to Smitha and vice versa, this blog post is being written. The idea is that Smitha's comments to this blog will be promoted to the main post as an update so that we can carry a civil debate. Let us see how far it goes. We are both busy people and may not update frequently. But please check back this post from time to time if you are interested.

The Case against Religion
Let me start with this first - I do understand that a set of humans at this juncture have a healthy hatred of religion. Starting with practices such as Sati, child marriage, female circumcision, racism, casteism, the horrors of religious wars such as the crusades, burning witches at stakes, stoning for adultery and so on; to the current global tinderbox of non-state-terrorism to state-terrorism there are many evils of society that have been instigated, sustained and sanctioned by religion.
Even at this present time we have seen the horrors of 500 year old grudges held by Hindu fundamentalists; the End Times driven evangelical fervor of Christian fundamentalists that drives American violence against West Asia; the ethnic hatred perpetuated by the Buddhists of Sri Lanka; the Caliphate dreaming Al-Qaeda and Taliban's reign of Terror in Afghanistan and Pakistan and several other conflicts around the world based on religion. New cults spring up all the time - such as the LRA in Uganda; Wahaabism in Arabia or the several Kalki avatar based cults of South India.
It is tempting to see these obvious effects of religion and then come to a conclusion that the concept of religion (broadly defined as a belief in a Supreme God) needs to be eliminated from Human society. That, in the future, we will LEARN about religion at schools, just as we will learn about untouchability or casteism - as a thing of past.
The proponents of this non-religious future point to increasing trends of population in developed countries to be non-religious. This future, they insist, is attainable using the following methods:
1. Education that emphasizes rationalism
2. An effort to eliminate religion from the public sphere
3. A constant effort to scrutinise human actions through rationalism

So where do I stand on these?
(Throughout this essay I will use the male term God to denote a supreme being, purely for convenience. I understand it may as well be a Goddess, if she exists)

My Views of Religion
Before I begin, I want to point out three broad trends in my arguments:
1. I have a belief in the universal declaration of human rights, which guarantees practise of religion.
2. I do not like judging the actions of humans who cause no harm to others through their private lives.
3. When I talk about science and scientists I include the soft (inexact, humanity-based) sciences such as psychology and sociology. In fact, I think they have more bearing on this debate than the exact sciences.

Thus, even though I have a pretty good knowledge of and fascination for science, I do NOT think that science and religion are two opposing poles from which one needs to choose for living a happy life.

The Judgements of Rationalists
The biggest mistake that religious people make, when judging atheists is this: they think establishing a moral compass (to know right from wrong) is impossible for people who do not believe in a God.
It is absolutely possible to know right from wrong just by being self-aware. You do not have to believe in God to know right from wrong.

By the same token, rationalists believe that it is not possible to be interested in Science or be a professional without a disbelief in God. That is, you have to reject religion in your PRIVATE life to be a doctor in your public life.
I think this is a completely false item of faith among rationalists. They are making the same mistake that religious people do - of judging people's private lives to be a guide to their public efficiency.
Let me explain why this is false:
a. There have been innumerable scientists who have been religious in their private lives. That does not prove anything deductively, but it does call into question the rationalist basis.
b. The truth is, the human conscious mind can perfectly live with contradicting beliefs. We do it all the time in relationships. It is possible for a person who reads the Bible or Quran or Gita daily to ignore their literal meanings and treat it merely as a vehicle for some peace of mind. That same person can step into their office and be a doctor who knows the germ theory of disease. It happens all the time in daily lives - in India most people pray at roadside temples and then go to work and fulfill their social and professional roles quite successfully.
Now, I am NOT saying that religion is essential for society. But at the stage in which we are, people can manage the dissonance effectively.

It is only when religion gets oppressive and authoritarian and provokes a LITERAL interpretation of scriptures that you have a problem. That is best managed by compromises - by a good education and self-awareness, I believe, it is possible to minimise such effects.
So, I believe, frankly, that rationalists have NO right to judge other human beings who cause no harm to society.

A Life of Illusion
One debater quoted Carl Sagan to me on this. Sagan said a life of reason should be preferred over one of illusion (I don't remember the exact quote).
Now, I think Sagan was wrong. He was obviously speaking from a exact scientific perspective. Psychologically speaking all of us have basic illusions through which we observe the external world. One simple illusion is, of course, the illusion of immortality.

The Yaksha asks Yudhishtira what is the greatest wonder in this world. Yudhishtira replied, "The greatest wonder is that every human sees others dying before him, all around him. And yet carries on living as if he is immortal".

We all have it. Going by the exact sciences, our very purpose is only to pass on our DNA. Yet humans strive to reach immortality by works of imagination and creativity. Everyone tries to find meaning in their lives. That is the whole role of philosophy.
Thus, an illusion-filled private life is fine - as long as you don't act like Chandramukhi.

The Rationalist Ideal
This is why I believe superstition and myths and rituals have their place in human life. The rationalist ideal is that of a life in which every action is examined for rationality. I am an atheist but I don't carry around this belief in rationality in all actions. There are many, many sources of irrationality other than religious belief.
For example, take a marriage ritual. Remember the premier rationalist movement of DK in Tamil Nadu pushed for a non-ritualistic marriage. In the end such marriages became rituals themselves, with some even tying the Thali. The point is, many of these rituals are engaged in as a duty or as fun. They are a communal activity and have deep psychological implications for a social member. American presidential inaugurations have rituals, for God's sake.
I am not arguing (as religious people do) that rituals need a rational meaning - such as a meaning for the tying of Thali. If there is a conscious meaning it is not a ritual. Human beings seem to form conventions and some kind of social acts in sequence as rituals from time immemorial. A goal to eliminate these (which cause no harm to anyone) is a goal born out of passing judgement on other people's lives.
This is why I have no problem participating in a ritual. In fact, even religious people do not participate in rituals out of a deep conviction for "meaning" or blessings or whatever. They do it automatically.
Let me put it this way - irrational rituals have as much meaning as life itself has meaning.

Religion and State
The word secularism in India has been corrupted thanks to the BJP's pushing of their brand word "pseudo-secularism". I believe religion has no role in public policy. But it gets more subtle than that.
France recently banned headscarves in schools. They also banned crucifixes and any religious symbol, but it immediately caused a problem. It is obvious to me, as an Indian, where the problem would be. For example, for a foreigner, the Sikh turban is a religious symbol. To me it seems a matter of cultural identity. This is more so in a foreign country, a colonial country like France, with deep-seated racism. It is no wonder to me that people see the ban as an assault on their identity.
The issues of identity goes very deep into our psyche. In movies we see characters spouting lines such as "I am Indian first, then a Tamil, then a Hindu" and so on. It is not as simple as that. The world has not gone through an ideal development phase that enables seeing ourselves just as humans. In fact, I suspect it is impossible for us to NOT recognize racial, regional, linguistic, religious and cultural identities - such is the diversity in this planet. Instead of attempting to fight identity, it would help if we managed such issues by recognizing the rights of minorities separately.
This is why I pointed out that sociology is at odds with the rational movements. While the rational movements attack frontally any role of what THEY SEE as religion, religion itself is not, simply, religion. The practice of untouchability, for example, has "religious" sanction. But it is likely that the sanction was AFTER the practice was widespread - I doubt if Manu Smriti INVENTED caste. Similarly what we call Islamic terrorism, is seen as a knee-jerk response to the forces of globalization, by sociologists.
I am NOT saying that religion is all good - mind you. I think it enables authoritarianism - deference to a master authority no matter what. It enables a literal interpretation of its scriptures.
But there are several aspects of religion and it is possible to regulate some while understanding and appreciating others.

Spiritualism
One such aspect is the ability of religion to trigger an exaltation in the human spirit. I am not saying that only religion can do it. But there are a lot of creative people who are also religious - particularly in Indian music and art. This trend is also there in Arabic, Persian, and almost every regional art. How can we pass judgement on religious people, while at the same time wondering at the poetry of Andaal or the music of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan? The mystical and spiritual strands of religion have enriched many lives and helped them find their own meaning.

In conclusion, I think rationalists have swung to the opposite pendulum from religion. Their faults of judgement are similar to those of religious people. Both of them seek an utopia instead of trying to make sense of where we are at this stage. Both of them are extremist in their views and selectively apply knowledge.

Smitha, your turn.

Update: Smitha's reply
Smitha says in comments:

I tried to post the rebuttal here. But it wont allow more than 4096 chars at a time. So I'm posting it in my blog instead.
pichuva.blogspot.com

P.S: I've a tendency to digress. You also have to excuse the general structure of the argument, I was pressed for time. Also, the text contains many unacknowledged quotes and verbatim arguments from many of my daily reading materials.

Some notes on Homosexuality

(Updated Below); Update II
I first read of homosexuality when I was in 8th std. There were American and British novels at home; written by Frederick Forsyth; Jeffrey Archer and other trumpets of the glory of the West. Some of the male characters showed a predilection for other males. When I first read the word "Homosexual" somehow I understood its meaning.
You see, one of the kids in the neighborhood (he was 2 years younger than me) was known to make advances on my friends. This was in Tirunelveli, and I bet he was not "converted" into homosexuality by anyone. In fact I doubt if he knew the term. There was no Tamil equivalent then (now there is - ஓரினச் சேர்க்கை ).
We used to harass him a little bit; but we all knew that homosexuality was taboo.
At that point of time, people just pretended that homosexuals exist only in the West. Homosexuality burst into public consciousness following the rapid spread of AIDS. AIDS was thought (incorrectly) to spread primarily through homosexual contact - so much that a friend thought it was unique to homosexuals. Of course, it was not unique to gay people. It was a virus that spread through unsafe sex, or sharing needles or a hundred other ways.
But when AIDS started spreading, there were advocacy groups who came on television and they openly talked about being homosexual. They advised tolerance for homosexuality in society. I believe that primary reason why AIDS patients are reviled in India is because of the association with homosexuality.
During this period, I got hold of a book based on popular psychology. It was one of the books such as "I'm OK; You're OK". It had lots of information about sexual behavior and variations. I have always believed that knowledge is the true key to fighting fear; reading that book has since made me more aware of the variety of sexual behavior common among humans and consider it normal.

Some Terminology
1. Homosexuals are not the "Third Gender" (Moonram Paal). They are not physically varied from general males or females.
2. The people we call "eunuchs", Napumsak (in Sanskrit) or "Aravaaani" (அரவாணி ) in Tamil are humans born with slightly different genetic make up. They MAY have both male and female sexual organs (hermaphrodites) or some other genetic difference. There is an ongoing fight for their rights and dignity.
(In Tamil Nadu they call themselves "Aravaani" because they trace their history from the oral story of "Aravaan", a warrior character in the Mahabharatha. An important part of the narrative of such marginalized and oppressed groups is their myths and legends. We will look at a few about Homosexuality later))
3. Transexuals are people who have a desperate wish to belong to the opposite sex. They are typically called as men trapped in a woman's body or women trapped in a man's body. In the West, transexuals actually have the option of undergoing medical procedure to change from a woman to a man or vice versa.
(Again, the Mahabharatha story of Shikandi - reborn from a woman to a man for revenge - can be taken to be a reference to a transexual.)
4. Cross-dressers are men or women who prefer to dress like the opposite sex. Men who dress in skirts (called "drag" in American popular culture) is an example. Cross-dressers NEED NOT be homosexuals. That is, even though some men may like to dress in women's clothes, they may not be attracted to other men.
5. Bi-sexuals are people who are attracted to males and females - their own sex and the opposite sex. Psychologists believe that bisexuality is very common, but it is concealed.
6. Finally, homosexuals are general males and females who feel sexually attracted to their own sex. In Western popular culture male homosexuals are called gays and female homosexuals are called lesbians. There are several derogatory terms for gays and lesbians in English. I won't list them here.

Homosexuality has NOTHING to do with child molestation or incest. There are people among us who somehow feel like having sex with children. They are called pedophiles and it is a horrid crime. Psychologists can try and cure pedophilia but Homosexuality is not a disease.
In popular culture, some of the worst offences on homosexuality are committed by comparing homosexuals with pedophiles or people who have sex with animals. Please note that homosexuality is consenting sex between two adults - that is, both the partners agree to have sex.

Homosexuality and the Fight for Equal Rights
In modern times, homosexuals in the West have been leading a more open lifestyle and have been demanding equal rights in society such as the right to marry and adopt children. We have to remember that even in the 1950's homosexuality was punished in the UK and USA (although they have forgotten all about that and use gay rights as a convenient beating stick on countries like Iran). Alan Turing, the founder of Computer Science and the main cryptographer who broke the German Enigma cipher machine was gay. He was punished by an English court to take medicine to "cure" homosexuality and he ended up committing suicide by taking Cyanide.

Why is homosexuality so reviled? It is "abnormal" in the mainstream's thinking and it involves sex. But there are also religious reasons in the West.

The Biblical sanction against homosexuality
The Book of Genesis in the Bible describes the story of Abraham. At the time of Abraham, there were two cities in Palestine called Sodom and Gomorrah. The people of Sodom and Gomorrah were said to have been involved in several acts of sexual deviancy. The Abrahamic God gets angry at this and plans to destroy both cities. He informs Abraham about this impending destruction.
Abraham remembers that his cousin Lot lives in Sodom and therefore begs the God to protect his life. God agrees and a couple of angels turn up like ordinary men at Lot's house in Sodom.
Unfortunately, the deviant people of Sodom had seen the angels and they demand from Lot that the men be handed over (presumably for raping them). Lot manages the situation. He is warned by the angels to flee the city of Sodom and not to look back.
Lot gets out of Sodom and across the plains towards the Sea of Galilee, as clouds gather above Sodom to inflict God's punishment. With him are his wife, and two daughters. His wife, curious as to what is happening behind her to Sodom, turns back and immediately becomes a pillar of salt. (Even now, near the Sea of Galilee there are several salt pillars and tourists are informed that one of them can be Lot's wife).
The acts in which the people of Sodom engaged are collectively called "Sodomy". They are identified with homosexuality. The laws of several states in the USA prohibit Sodomy, because of such Biblical sanction. The Indian Penal Code forbids Sodomy - that is homosexuality is a CRIME, still, in India. Although the law is hardly enforced.

Other Arguments Against Homosexuality
The "abnormality" of homosexuality has prompted it as a assault against society's basic structure. For example, Homosexual marriage is portrayed as an assault on heterosexual marriage. The gay lifestyle is thought to be hedonistic. As I said above, people (ex- Rick Santorum ex-Senator PA) have compared homosexuality to sex with beasts or with children. The idea that our kids will choose homosexuality or will become homosexuals is a potent fear for some people.
These fears are caused by sexual repression, and religious superstition. Psychologists believe that strong homophobia (fear of homosexuals) may be caused by repressed homosexuality itself (ex- Senator Larry Craig of USA sponsored several anti-homosexual resolutions, but was found to have solicited and had sex with men in airport restrooms).

The Arguments for Homosexual rights
What are the equal rights that the gay community demand in the West and in India?
They want the anti-Sodomy laws repealed.
They want awareness of homosexuality in society so that "hate-crimes" against them stop (remember the guy burnt to death in a Chennai suburb for having AIDS?)
They want to be not discriminated against in jobs (that is even if someone is openly gay, he/she should not be fired for that reason.)
They want to be able to serve in the military or police
They want their marriages (between a guy and another guy or a woman and another woman) recognized in courts so that benefits and property rights follow.
They want to be able to adopt children.

It is clear that in the West homosexuality is rapidly gaining social tolerance and equal rights will eventually be theirs. Most younger people are tolerant of different lifestyles. In India, there is a long way to go - even women have not reached a tolerable lifestyle here.

Some of the arguments made by homosexuals to be considered as part of society are interesting:
The "Hardwired" argument
One strand of homosexual advocates have tried to present homosexuality as a genetic difference. Thus, they argue, homosexuals cannot help being gay; it is hardwired in their brains.
As a proof they have tried to show some scientific work. The religious community has hit back with other scientific work and at this point it is a stalemate.
I personally believe this argument may make homosexuality acceptable in people's minds; but I don't agree with the thrust of it. Hardwired or not, even if it is a matter of choice, society HAS to give equal rights to gay people. Who cares if it is in the genetic code or not? The private lives of adult humans are not the business of laws.

By the way, interestingly, as a part of this argument, gay rights advocates also point to the fact that homosexuality exists in the animal kingdom - dogs can be homosexual; and zookeepers have known homosexual animals for some time. For example, Baboons are said to be 50% gay.

The Historical Argument
The oldest surviving epic in the world is the Epic of Gilgamesh. It is a classy Sumerian poem compiled around 1700BC and has miraculously survived and has more miraculously been translated.

Sidenote:
I will quote a few classic lines from the debate on Death in this epic. Nothing to do with the subject of this essay, but these are thoughts of people who existed 4000 years back:

But man's life is short, at any moment
it can be snapped, like a reed in a canebrake.
The handsome young man, the lovely young woman -
in their prime, death comes and drags them away.
Though no one has seen death's face or heard
death's voice, suddenly, savagely, death
destroys us, all of us, old or young.
And yet we build houses, make contracts, brothers
divide their inheritance, conflicts occur -
as though this human life lasted forever.
The river rises, flows over its banks
and carries us all away like mayflies
floating downstream: they stare at the sun,
then all at once there is nothing.

-- Gilgamesh, a New English version. Stephen Mitchell. Free Press Publishers

Gilgamesh talks about a very close, extraordinary friendship between the King of Uruk, Gilgamesh, and a savage in the forest, Enkidu. Several of the descriptions of their friendship sound like a homosexual relationship. When Enkidu dies, Gilgamesh dresses him in a bride's veil.
Homosexual rights advocates claim of a historical tradition of homosexuality being accepted in society. They point to Greek and Roman societies and their literature points to accepted homosexuality.
Further along, Leonardo DaVinci, one of the greatest Renaissance men was said to be homosexual.
These arguments legitimise homosexuality and try to detach it from the biblical context.

In several ways, the thrust of these arguments is a demonstration of human rights - that society shall not take away the natural rights of humans. I think it is time for a repeal of the Sodomy laws in India and some education about alternative lifestyles.

Update I
I missed clarifying a few common misconceptions about homosexuals.
1. Psychologists say that many "straight" men and women have a few homosexual fantasies. This does NOT mean they are gay.
2. You do not become a homosexual because you had a domineering father. This belief, common in evangelical circles, is a myth.
3. Homosexual men need not be impotent. Impotence has nothing to do with straightness or gayness.
4. The converse too - if someone is impotent it does not mean they are homosexual or even feminine.
5. Homosexual men need not be feminine acting or feminine thinking. Homosexual women need not be masculine.

Update II
I know I am digressing too much here, but I am unable to resist.
The Epic of Gilgamesh has meaning for Indian readers. The character, Enkidu, who becomes Gilgamesh's friend, is found as a savage in the forest. He is said to be born the son of Goddess Aruru. When Gilgamesh hears about this formidable savage, he asks a guide to contact Shamhat, a priestess of Ishtar in his city (Uruk). The priestesses of Ishtar are described very similar to Devadasis, being available to any man, having dedicated their bodies to the goddess.
The guide takes Shamhat to meet and seduce Enkidu into coming back to Uruk. Shamhat reaches the forest and observes Enkidu. He has never seen a woman and is smitten byher. She then convinces him to leave the forest and go with her to Uruk.
This story must be familiar to Malayalam movie watchers. This is the story of the movie "Vaishali". Vaishali is based on the legend of Rishyasrunga described in the Ramayana.
The kingdom of Anga has not had rain for a long time. The King is advised to perform a yaga (fire worship). The yaga has to be performed by a man who has not known a woman. The sages advise the king to get Rishyasrunga, son of the Rishi Vibhandhaka and the celestial dancer Menaka. He was born in the forest and brought up by his father without contact of any woman.
The King of Anga sends a delegation of Devadasis, to seduce Rishyasrunga and bring him back. They go and accomplish the task.

See any similarity? Isn't this amazing? The Sumerian legend had obviously spread around and influenced the Indian epics of Ramayana and Mahabharatha, both of which contain this legend. The original Sumerian poems, which were written much before the epic was compiled, were from around 2500BC.

Establishing an Internet Presence

I wrote about the administrative details of starting freelancing here. In the below article, let me talk about a few guidelines for getting clients.
When you plan to take the freelancing route, as I mentioned in the above article, be clear about your role: A freelancer in IT is usually a programmer (or graphic designer). You need to be ready to program and be hands-on.
You are NOT starting a business - for now. You are a one-man show initially. Do not be over-aggressive in going after clients. Do not commit to more than you can do. All the rules that apply as a programmer in a project applies to a free-lancer too.
There are certain possibilities for getting clients as a freelancer - let us consider these:

The GetAFreeLancer route
Here is a link to a set of freelancing websites for coding: 85+ Tools & Resources for Freelancing
When you start, it is tempting to look at getafreelancer or other sites and assume that you can bid lower than everyone and get projects. This route is completely packed with a million other programmers all over the world. The clients are mostly cheap and try to lowball every bid. They have no idea about the true value of programming and may not pay at the end either. I have seen people who ask for an Email campaign system for $200. It is ridiculous, and I would advise you to stay away from this route.

The NRI route
As I mentioned in the previous article, if you have been abroad for some time, maintain contacts with your immediate friends. This does NOT mean that you go after any contact like an Amway rep. Stay within your comfort zone but let people know that you will be available for freelancing. Open a LinkedIn.com account and keep it current.
In my experience, if you let people know that you are going back to India, they will approach you with offers. In this technological age, remote working is pretty easy and so feel confident about going into freelancing.

The Long Hard route
If you are in India, have not had time to cultivate contacts abroad, you can still get clients. But it is a long haul. You need to prepare from now. Most Indian programmers with a talent and passion for programming would be in the situation I describe below:
1. You will have had some years of experience (3 or more) in a services company.
2. You will have worked with foreign clients. You would have communicated with them via email,IM; you would also have interacted with them personally when they come over or you go abroad on short visits.
3. You know that there are a set of "soft skills" - writing grammatical English with some structure; how to organize your thoughts and write emails; and you understand a few foriegn accents. If you are not skilled at these, you atleast know that you have gaps and try to get better.

The method I suggest below takes a long-term view. It may not yield results immediately; but there is no question that it is a clean route to take.

Note: Most services companies have non-solicitation agreements. Based on those agreements, you cannot usually work with direct clients of your company for a time-period. So, PERISH the thought of freelancing directly for your companies' clients.

Establishing an Internet Presence
1. Register a web domain name with a good hosting provider. For now, go cheap. Think a bit about your domain name. Remember that you MAY grow to be a business at some point, so create a professional sounding name.
2. Make sure that you get a hosting provider which offers platforms with the technology you are most comfortable with - such as .NET framework and SQL Server if you are Microsoft; or PHP and MySQL if you are in PHP.
3. Google (and other providers) offers email services under your own domain. For example, if your site is www.mygreatcompany.com, then you can get email services for @mygreatcompany.com. Most hosting providers give you a way to map from the domain name to a third party email service such as Gmail. Use that and create professional email ids such as sales@mygreatcompany.com and an email address with your name.
4. Some hosting providers give blogging packages for a small fee. That way, you can host your blog in your site itself. Or you can try the route I chose - I have a blogspot technical blogging address (http://ramsnotes.blogspot.com). I link my articles from my website (http://www.alphazonsystems.com).
Having a blog is important. Having some backend such as .NET or PHP with database support is also important, even if your site consists of html pages only at this stage.
5. Have a graphic designer design a decent website. Develop it and make it available for public.

At this stage what is the content strategy for your website? How do you get traffic?
You have to create content based on your goals. Your goal is to be known as a good technologist. This website will be seen by your potential clients. They will NOT take a decision solely based on how good your content is, but it is definitely ONE of the factors. You are trying to gain popularity in the internet.
The best way to create content is to write blog articles. These articles can be of certain types:
a) Explaining a concept such as XML parsing or concurrency checks in a O-R framework.
b) Explaining a tip such as how to trace HTTP calls with Fiddler while browsing from Firefox.
c) Exploring a new technology such as Microsoft Silverlight or Adobe Flash Collaboration Service.

I have written a detailed article on the idea of blogging here. You need to learn to write well. Apart from writing articles, provide free code. People will always visit sites with free code. For example, if you wrote a business app based on Silverlight as a proof of concept, provide the code as a zip file, linked and downloadable from your website.
If you create good content, then there are two advantages from it:
1. Obvious one - people will visit your site; they will link to you. It serves as online credntials.
2. Subtle one - for every article you publish, send the link to your clients, friends and contacts. Put the link in LinkedIn.com, facebook and so on. What that does is it REMINDS your contacts that there is a talented guy/gal out there who is available. They will keep being reminded by your work. Let us say, instead, that you send an email every month telling everyone that you need contracts. people will not react favorably to that. But sending the blog link is a very subtle reminder.
I think this is the best way to use the internet as a marketing tool for personal work.

One big question is how far you can market yourself while STILL working for another company. If you look at my website, alphazonsystems.com, I am explicitly marketing myself. But I ONLY did it after I left my last job. Before that, the site was available and so were the articles. But I did not cross the line and ask for work for myself. I think that is safe. Maintain a website and post articles, but don't let your company feel threatened.

This internet presence you create will take time to accumulate. Over time people will link to you, download code. But you may not get actual clients who ask for services. That is fine. There are other indirect reasons it will help you.

The Website as Credential
As I said earlier, you cannot directly approach your clients. But your clients have friends and their own network. THAT is the network you can tap into. It is one level separated from your own network. If you impress the people known to you, they will refer you and remember you when someone is looking for a freelancer.
That network does not know you personally. But your website and the work that has accumulated in that website over a period of a couple of years will serve to convince them to trust you.
If you are passionate about technology and want to freelance anytime in the future, it is IMPERATIVE for you to establish an online professional presence. Start the process NOW.

So, again, the steps to create an internet presence are:
1. Create a website
2. Create a blog in your website or separately
3. Start writing a couple of articles
4. Popularize your articles by linking them in your website; linking them from your IM; Facebook; LinkedIn; and send emails with the links to everyone who likes technology in your circle.
5. Write frequently
6. Create demos in your website with free code downloads.
7. You can also write articles in online tech journals and link to them. It requires professional writing skills but you should try.

Back to my original point, you require this kind of long haul approach to seeking clients for freelancing. Particularly if you do not have many contacts abroad.

Layoff Dharma

I want to quickly point out a couple of things about layoffs.
I see people often arguing that layoffs are essential load shedding for a business cycle. Whenever you rant about layoffs, a bunch of guys talk about the businees point of view.
While it is true that layoffs are unavoidable, we have to look at a bunch of predicaments employees face in the Indian context:
1. They are not paid fair compensation during layoffs - most companies only pay till the day the layoff occurs, while according to law they are supposed to pay till the month end. Thus companies violate the law for their benefit.
2. Even during the peak of this recession, you see companies insisting that the layoffs are performance based. Obviously, (as I have argued here and here), almost every layoff in this cycle is because companies THEMSELVES are not performing well. They are losing projects, are unable to hold on to clients and find new clients. Yet, the fallacy is mantained that a vague "performance" criteria goes into layoff listing. The truth is, there cannot be any independent verifications of performance. It is a vague term. Whoever heard of companies laying off employees from billable projects enmasse?
3. As I wrote before, companies have hiked the "notice period" for an employee to leave to be an unmanageable THREE MONTHS. This was done when the market was good so that companies can treat employees close to bonded labor. They have thretened and cajoled employees to sign these notice periods.
But while laying off those same employees, they do not adhere to any notice period. By any standards this is unfair. While we are ready to give allowance to companies for maintaining their interests, we are not ready to grant the same to employees. Why can't the notice periods be mutual?
4. More than anything, what makes me angry is that the HR and management keeps talking about "loyalty" as a prime virtue in any company. The relationship between an employee and employer is contractual, and there is no need to talk about loyalty. Yet, they kept claiming some kind of divine moral authority based on loyalty. How loyal have THEY been to their employees?
5. There is another very important consideration here - companies like to treat employees as if they are contract workers, during a recession. But, they are NOT allowed any of the conveniences of a contract worker. If you work for a company, and you want to earn more money, you CANNOT freelance. If you do it you have to secretly. Thus, you KNOW that you will be laid off during a business cycle, YET you cannot accumulate additional money for the rainy day. I think this is the unfairest condition, either mentioned in employee agreements or implicitly enforced. If an employee does NOT use any of the company's resources and does NOT go after a company's clients (non-solicitation) I don't see why he/she cannot freelance.

Thus, the scenario in India is loaded against employees. Layoffs are fine, if you give a sufficient notice, adhere to the severance package, and allow employees to freelance in their spare time. Otherwise it is just naked exploitation.

I will write more about freelancing next, but here are the list of my links on the recession:

IT Layoffs - Stop Blaming the Staff
IT Layoffs and Corporations
A Quick Note on the Economic Downturn
Being Self-Employed in IT