Happy Holidays

My aunt and uncle were here last week for dinner -- from Assam. Doorbell rings. It's our friend -- a man dressed in a sari and as Santa Claus. We all had dinner together. Globalization indeed.

Pre-Madonna Material Girl

We had a sangeet tonight and my mom set out to do Naya's manicure...

Naya: Only paint the nails on one hand.
Aita: Why?
Naya: Because I need the other hand to cook!

Ramayana in Effect on Christmas

Mommy, I am Hanuman and you are Sita. Sita, you are such a good cooker!!

Googling a nation's pulse

http://www.livemint.com/2007/12/28001559/Googling-a-nation8217s-puls.html

Growing up, my brothers and I always made fun of one particular phrase my parents and relatives used: Latest.
The definition was pretty much literal—hip, cool, trendy. But its grammatical applications I questioned.
“Her saris are always different, for each occasion,” would say my mother. “She is the latest.”
“Kuch Kuch Hota Hai was too good. Ek dam latest,” would say my cousin, piling Indian-ism upon Indian-ism.
Now, the folks at Google have given us a global equivalent and new moniker for the intangible idea behind latest: zeitgeist. (Fittingly, the word that means “spirit of the times” and exudes a certain robust universality comes from the German.)
Last week, the search engine giant that made its brand a household verb released its top 10 lists of fastest growing searches worldwide. This year marked the first that India got its very own Google Zeitgeist.
By the looks of it, we are obsessed with Mahatma Gandhi and Sania Mirza, technology and Aishwarya Rai. We love our Orkut and holidays in Kerala.
But after browsing with interest the lists, divided by terms, celebrities, athletes, politicians and places, I somehow felt the latest zeitgeist really doesn’t represent the pulse of this nation. It does not capture the tier II cities or the dichotomies of New India that everyone has become obsessed with understanding lately. Every other day, I field an entrepreneur’s phone call asking for help making sense of it all (free consulting, basically). I politely decline, citing a conflict of interest as a journalist.
But the lists, coupled with the end-of-year impulse to assess progress and make projections, spurred me to delve a little deeper. I bypassed the aggregated data that makes up the Zeitgeist and looked into what we are searching for day to day, using a tool known as Google Trends, unveiled in May 2006. Google Trends essentially neatly organizes which nations search for what and which are the most popular searched terms on a given day or week.
Take, for example, the week ended 21 November: four of the 10 top trends were related to teachers recruitment board exams. One trend was a website for government staff selection, while another related to the common admission test (CAT). Another was the National Institute of Industrial Engineering.
For comparison’s sake, on the same day, the US top trends included the high-profile murder of a woman, road conditions in Iowa and how long a turkey should be cooked in the oven. (It was the day before Thanksgiving.)
The key difference, of course, is that ours is an aspirational economy. Theirs is already there. (Whether you actually want to be cooking turkeys and obsessed with the weather is another thing altogether).
On Christmas Day, Google Trends shows that the Americans wanted to know about a tiger killing a tourist at the San Francisco Zoo, the retailers and restaurants open on Christmas, and sales for the next day.
In India, we too got into the holiday spirit, asking about Christmas and New Year SMS-es and how many reindeer Santa Claus has. But we also wanted to know about the Railways Recruitment Board in Ranchi and how best to file our taxes.
The day-to-day trends strike me because they conjure an image of hordes of youth in cyber cafes hungry for opportunity, watching the clock to ensure they don’t go a minute over an hour. I picture people who still see jobs at railways and public sector undertakings as safe bets, who might not realize the possibilities that await in a private sector craving talent as it never has before.
I asked Vinay Goel, head of products for Google India, what he made of the difference. He cautioned that the Zeitgeist is intentionally aggregated and summarizes year-long trends and search terms, not the most popular day in and day out. He also notes a distinction in content sought in India and the US.
“Where is the local electrician, plumber?” he asks. “The local electrician here has never been on the Internet. …What I see happening now is a lot of people are trying to get a lot of that basic local information. …The US folks don’t necessarily use Google as much as a navigational tool.”
While he meant navigation in the technical sense, it’s an apt metaphor for what a search engine still means an India—not to bake a turkey or chance upon some grisly photos of victims of violence—but a road map for life. Really, it is an apt metaphor for the India that still is.
This economy is often framed as one facing an acute talent shortage. Google Trends tell us we need to rethink this notion. Clearly, a large segment of the population is attempting to leverage technology to gain access. For all who gripe about the dearth of talented candidates, it is a reminder that we must meet the Googlers halfway, perhaps help them become the latest, too.
Your comments are welcome at widerangle@livemint.com

Not Really Indian debate continues...

Check out this article in Outlook by Ramchandra Guha on the other worship in Decmber -- of the NRI

Then check out this response.

Warning registrattion required but well worth it. Then tell me what you think.

New year, new workplace

Wider Angle
livemint.com

Come next year, forget working out. First, let’s just get the working part right.
In this season of resolutions made, promptly followed by a season of resolutions broken, I think the Indian workplace is in such crisis that we actually all need to resolve—once and for all—to make 2008 the year of the liberated, balanced, empowered, integrated office.
It is easier than it sounds. And Indian managers especially have a daunting challenge ahead.
Consider the dire findings of a study Mint reported on Monday. Indian corporate leaders are far more “task-focused”, less “social” and “participative” than North Americans, according to a survey of 100 managers across India conducted by executive recruitment company Korn/Ferry International, in association with International Market Assessment (IMA) India.
Translation: Indian bosses need to get out of their offices more, get a little dirtier in the ditches alongside their workers, make clearer the mission of their companies and actually show the staff what a flat hierarchy means. And then they need to make sure middle management is doing the same.
Place that imperative against the backdrop of the hypergrowth so many companies are experiencing right now and getting in touch with our softer sides might seem either impossible or the easiest thing to put on hold.
Yet, our survival depends on it.
Cliché as it sounds, empowered workforces are the only way to spur innovation, creativity, new ideas—the stuff that keeps us all in business really. The problem in implementation thus far has been that human resources (HR) departments’ efforts tend to border on the gimmicky. Think of all those useless office worksites that result in sprained ankles from three-legged races or teetering on a wire suspended between two trees.
So, here’s a suggestion for Resolution No. 1: Stop trying to bond us with ropes and handkerchiefs. Leave the races and role-playing exercises to athletes and actors. Instead, retreats should be used to discuss mission and drive its importance home over and over again. Why do we do what we do? For whom are we doing what we are doing? If your employees don’t know the answer to these questions, no amount of agility on a tightrope is going to save them—or your company.
Resolution No. 2: Thank them for working. Feedback, or the lack of it, is often cited as the main reason people leave an employer. Indians suffer from no lack of bluntness (in this festive season, can we also spare the overweight employees asked to dress up like Santa?), but we are sparse in our praise and downright jealous when it comes to stellar performers. Force yourself to regularly see the good— and thank those responsible for it. The words of one worker this week are still ringing in my ears, “I am a simple, easy employee. If you tell me I did a good job, say, once every two weeks, it will make all the difference in my life.” Encourage bottom-to-top evaluations and ban HR jargon such as “360-degree performance measures”.
Resolution No. 3: Pay more than lip service to embrace diversity and family-friendly policies. If your office is currently under construction (these days, whose isn’t?), are you asking the designer to include space for a gym, crèche, a room to pump breast milk for new mothers, smoking lounges so the halls don’t stink? Do you offer paternity leave, too? Are you making the transition back to work easier for new parents, and making sure younger employees have role models who balance work, home and all that falls in between?
Resolution No. 4: Earn the respect you command. We are still far too obsessed with titles and pedigree. I always work harder for bosses who aren’t afraid to slog with me, whose actions implicitly mentor and warrant mimicking.
Resolution No. 5: Stop accepting the way it’s always been. The only way to be different is to, well, do things differently.
Lest you think I just lecture, here’s a glimpse into my workplace goals: In 2008, I will better manage up and down and around. I will pay more attention to star performers and hardest workers and not take them for granted. I will set specific tasks for the meetings I hold; I will show up better prepared for the meetings for which I am summoned. I will seek training or mentors to help me improve on weaknesses. I will take more time out with individual colleagues and family members to listen and learn. I will limit the nights I bring home my laptop—if I must use it, it will be preferably after my daughter has been read to and fallen asleep. I will have one day where I literally switch off, Facebook to BlackBerry.
On 2 January, when we all report back to the grind, I’m hoping to join many of you in starting anew to create new energy at work, unfurling passion beyond the paycheck. From our happiness to our country’s continued growth, much is at stake.
Your comments are welcome at widerangle@livemint.com

Add Spanish tot her list

Naya (reading to herself): Come on, Dora, let's say it in Spanish. Ek, dew, teen, panch, cuatro!!

Bedtime stories

Naya: I can't find my Goldilocks book.
Me: It's okay. I know the story. It's in my head.
Naya: No, Mommy, stories are in your mouth.

A clash in class, of class

http://www.livemint.com/2007/12/13232123/A-clash-in-class-of-class.html
By S. Mitra Kalita

The shooting has been called “American-style”, “reminiscent of American values” and “a case of violence familiar to US schools”.
In reality, it is none of the above. This week’s tragedy at the Euro International School in Gurgaon demonstrates a collision of the India we once were, the India we aspire to be and, sadly, the India we continue to accept.
At the outset, I concede not knowing how and why two class VIII students killed a 14-year-old in the sanctum of school. But a few facts and conversations with educators and residents make clear that our quest for answers might better come from examining our own behaviours than the West’s.
The day after the murder, I headed to the suburb just south of New Delhi —the outsourcing hub that can at once remind me of New Jersey’s identical housing developments and manicured landscaping, Miami Beach’s art deco towers over swimming pools and golf courses, and oddly, my ancestral village of green fields, jagged boundary walls and herds of goats and cattle.
And that is why so many people begin their description of Gurgaon by saying, “The thing about this place is it’s really a gaon.”
Because of the way Gurgaon came to be acquired and built gradually, large swathes of farmland were parcelled out even as villagers hung onto their pockets of homes, which cluster in the shadows of sleekness. Some took profits and bought into new societies clinically named “sectors”, renting out the old place to migrants or relatives.
Flush with cash or rental income, locals seek the same power—purchasing and political—as the newcomers, observes Sanjay Sharma, who runs a real estate company and the portal, Gurgaon Scoop. They shop in the same malls, attend the same resident welfare association meetings and send their children to the same schools.
But they are not the same.
“There is a struggle between people who are here and people who have come from outside,” says Sharma, a returnee from the US. His attempt to videotape a community meeting in his sector recently resulted in a brawl and seven stitches on his upper lip. “Locals here are quite bottled up. They have money but they are not well read.”
Locals concede as much, pinning their hopes on education as equalizer.
Satinder Grewal, an advocate, traces generations back to Bijwasan village on the Delhi-Haryana border. Some land has been sold, while more— about Rs50 crore, he estimates—remains in the family’s possession.
“A new awareness is coming to Gurgaon and locals, we want our kids to learn English,” says Grewal.
By virtue of shunning government schools, the families of the three boys involved in the shooting seem to hold this aspiration. Media outlets reported that the family of the victim, Abhishek Tyagi, moved into Gurgaon city from their nearby village so he and his sister could attend Euro International.
“They hoped their children would get a better education,” a neighbour told The Indian Express.
Despite its international label, the school’s website says it follows the Indian Schools Certificate Examinations. Misleading name aside, I wonder what role coveted private schools play in bridging the places such youth come from—and their methods of conflict resolution—with the global exposure they promise. School officials did not return calls, emails or text messages.
Police say the gun came from one suspect’s father, a property dealer. Why so many in Gurgaon feel they even need a gun is a question as loaded as the weapon. Status symbol, yes. A response to the general lawlessness outside gated compounds, indeed. Police also say real estate agents brandish guns because so many transactions are a combination of cheque and cash (translation: illegal).
As Katherine Newman articulated in her book Rampage: The Social Roots of School Shootings, shootings occur only when many factors converge, all necessary, but none sufficient on its own. In the suburb these teens called home, not much more seems needed to create a hotbed of conflict and confusion.
As he heard of the shootings this week, Sharma asked himself and his neighbours: How far have we come?
“Civilization comes into the picture when you restrain yourself from violence,” he pronounces. “Gurgaon is getting worse.”
Of course, clashes—by class, caste, profession—now mark countless cities and towns developing their geographical and metaphorical fringes. On a corner of Sharma’s desk, for example, sat this week’s Outlook magazine, its cover depicting two women smoking and dancing. The headline: “Why Bangalore hates the IT culture.”
Yet, it is naïve to say India’s social ills are borrowed from the West; sex, drugs and violence have been a reality of life here for decades. We would better serve our youth by wiping the grime of corrupt, dishonest ways off the mirror. One teen’s death warrants at least one clean, hard look at ourselves.
Your comments are welcome at widerangle@livemint.com

School Daze

We went to an orientation at Naya's school today. It is the Navakriti school, founded by the people from the famous Mirambika school, next to the also-famous IIT (which has shared research on preschool education) and NCERT, which is trying tto change Indian schools from rigid to creative. The sessions started off with meditation and a flower offering to The Mother and Aurobindo. I will confess that my first thought was that this wasn't necessarily the type of place for me or my kid and that maybe we should have stuck with a more commercial school.
But then the parents were asked to line up for circle time and we had to clap our hands and sing songs like kids. I warmed up fast. When we were led down a marigold-strewn path that was decorated along the sides with children's artwork and led into the outdoor amphitheatre, I was feeling like I had bought in. Thankfully, I relaxed and nodded in approval as educators detailed the philosophy of "integrated education", combining the child-centered learning I like about Montessori with the freedom movement of Aurobindo Society schools with the focus on nature as a way to nurture of the hippie movement with quantifiable research on how these are the most important years for a human being's intellect formation. It is hard to practice not saying "DON'T" all the time to a child but I certainly would rather embrace the "DO" and "GET DIRTY" philosophy than what I see in so much of child-rearing.
I should explain why we switched Naya from her old school in the first place. It was a wonderful experience when she was 2. Her teacher Alka was loving and really helped Naya in her adjustment. One of our fondest memories in Delhi is of Naya on stage dressed like a bear, swinging her hips, telling the twins dressed as giraffes how to dance better, and singing her heart out about Jinny and Johnny.
But when she moved up to class for age 3, she started bringing homework asking her to colour a banana yellow. When we went to school for the Independence Day celebration, she didn't seem happy to be on stage at all and a representative from a bank droned on and on about the need to save for our kids' education. The same bank snapped pictures of the babies and asked us for our mobile numbers for delivery - which meant they wanted to make another sales pitch in our living rooms. The last straw came during diversity week when the representative for America was... Ronald McDonald.
It was Delhi at its worst.
I begged and pleaded all the marquis schools to let us in - Step by Step, Magic Years, Learning Tree, Ardee. No seats. Why had I not thought of this earlier?
I did what I do whenever I panic. I researched, reported, asked everyone I knew. Thankfully, a woman who randomly met at a birthday party for a colleague's daughter said she had just been to Navakriti, loved it but because of the distance, she didn't enroll her daughter.
Nitin spent one day at Navkriti, while we both observed another Montessori near our house. I don't think we were really familiar with Aurobindo method at this point but we loved all the space to play (it is about an acre, which is really really rare in Delhi) and the fact that they encourage kids to play in water and get dirty. I also liked that there weren't expat parents there (sorry, I know I am one) and that I saw a little girl with a motorcycle racing t-shirt on and I gathered one of two things a) it was a hand me down from an elder brother or b) she was very firm on what she wants to wear and her mother lets it be. I liked that. (So many of these Delhi playschools have Prada on the kids AND the parents.)
Anyway after three hours of orientation today where I heard from the most articulate teachers I have ever encountered in India about why they do this, what they learn (NOT what they teach) I felt hope about Indian education for the first time since I got here. One of the parents even stood up and asked about efforts to integrate classrooms so poor children and rich children could be educated side by side -- and that the learning methods would extend to the less fortunate. Charity by volition in Delhi!! There also is a lot of art and creativity with natural substances like twigs and stones and dyes and flowers. They teach the alphabet not through drill like A is for apple but more through stories.
We were just about to start looking for another school for Naya but alas she misses the cutoff yet again this year. After today, I think another year here -- if all goes as they preach -- is a blessing.

Wider Angle

livemint.com

Do we really want little girls to grow up into damsels who need to be saved, always by wealthy and powerful men?
Wider Angle | S.Mitra Kalita
I wish the princesses would stay poisoned, in deep slumber, locked in towers. Really, they should just stay away.
For my daughter’s third birthday, celebrated in the US, she received a half-dozen odes to junior royalty, on T-shirts and pyjamas, tiaras and wands, even a huge pink rucksack stamped with the Disney characters who have been princesses: Ariel, Jasmine, Belle, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella.
I thought India would be safer.
Then, the other day as I bought a lehenga for a friend’s baby, the store attendant says in broken English, “Beautiful. She will look just like a princess.”
It got worse this past weekend when a Wall Street Journal story, published in Mint’s Lounge, reported all the ways Disney is innovating to keep little girls dreaming of being princesses—even until they become grown-ups (think brides dressed like Snow White prancing down the aisle). Still, I chalked the phenomenon up to the wacky ways of the West, until I came to this line:
“Disney has been trying to introduce the brand in countries like India, where it launched a search for an Indian princess.”
My heart sank. We are not safe.
Leave aside the marketing gimmicks, for a moment. What is it with this newfound aspiration to princess-hood? We cannot even blame little girls because the desire is so clearly something we are encouraging, looking for, egging on. Why?
The feminist writer Peggy Orenstein got so fed up with America’s obsession with princesses that she penned a New York Times Magazine article last year on the subject headlined, “What’s wrong with Cinderella?”
Her conclusion really summarized my frustration: “Maybe Princess is the first salvo in what will become a lifelong struggle over her body image, a Hundred Years’ War of dieting, plucking, painting and perpetual dissatisfaction with the results. …In the end, it’s not the Princesses that really bother me anyway. They’re just a trigger for the bigger question of how, over the years, I can help my daughter with the contradictions she will inevitably face as a girl…”
Despite a few progressive exceptions —namely Diana, although she got much cooler after she stopped being the prince’s prize—princesses basically connote major neediness, damsels craving saving: often with a kiss, sometimes true love, always wealth and power.
In India, many of our girls sadly require a different kind of “saving” (in the womb). Then if they make it, they still grow up against messages that undermine them as less worthy and capable, for no other reason than gender. And now we are asking them to be princesses, to dream of the days when a man will enable escape?
It seems such a step backward from all that has suddenly become possible in this economy for women.
By now, my fellow mothers are either nodding their heads in agreement or have just relegated me to the crazy stepmother category.
The Walt Disney Co. India clarified that the search for the Indian princess was a one-time event staged last year when the products were introduced in India. “Princess is one of our extremely popular franchises in India,” said K. Seshasaye, Disney’s India spokesman. “When the toys were launched, within 45 days, the licensees told us all the products were off the shelves. ...Basic family values are pretty strong here in India. And Disney stories around princesses encourage these girls to take the right values.”
What’s the harm? you ask. They’ll grow out of it. They’ll grow up to be astronauts and managing directors.
Will they? Have they?
This week, a study released by education training institute Career Launcher shows the number of women who receive coaching for the Indian Institutes of Management entrance examination is between 28% and 33%. Yet, batch profiles at the prestigious IIMs indicate that just 10-15% of students who gain admission are women.
Despite a steadily increasing female presence on campuses, the discrepancy between those who aspire and those who gain admissions stems from more men having engineering backgrounds (a popular precursor to B-school) and more men having work experience, the study found.
About one out of 10 students in the nation’s top B-schools is a woman —yet double that number wants to be there. And we still want our little girls to be princesses?
As we opened the gifts at the birthday party, I hung on to my mother’s first words to my daughter in the delivery room, minutes after she was born: “I hope you grow up to be president.”
Already, India has achieved the milestone my mother alluded to, while the US is just beginning to consider it: A female president.
Skip the marketing hype. Our girls need to move on to bigger titles—the kind they can earn and seize themselves.
Your comments are welcome at widerangle@livemint.com

Out of the closet

A story I really liked working on about -- of all things -- the Indian version of the closet.

http://www.livemint.com/2007/12/07003357/Out-of-the-closet.html

Latest

Mommy, your husband said to close the door.
- Naya at midnight

House of the Rising Sun exhibition studies and paintings

Each photographic study is followed by the resulting painting, except the last one, in which case the painting is still in progress.
Each painting is 30"x60", oil acrylic and tea on canvas.

Subtle

"You and me are girls. But who does Papa have?"