Naya on sleep and politics

Mommy: Children need to sleep earlier. I am not a child.
Naya: You are a child. Your mom's child.

---
Mommy: I don't know which job I should take. Brand X or Brand Y.
Naya: You should just work for John McCain.

Patriotic Naya-ism

Naya: I want to be Assamese president of New York. No, wait, the Hindi one of Orissa.

And then today, a heartbreaking Naya-ism

Naya: Mommy, I want to travel again.
Mommy: Where do you want to go?
Naya: To Kashmir.
Mommy: There's a lot of fighting there now.
Naya: Then let's go when it's over.

Swimming lesson/School issues again

Naya has been taking swimming lessons at the Niti Bag country club. But the other day, she said this:

Are we going to the Lychee Bug Club?

As an aside, I meant to tell you about trying to get our driver's daughters into a government school. If we thought our nursery saga was nightmarish, we got our eyes opened by seeing how much harder it is for lower classes. First he asked me to get a letter from the ministry of human resource development for his daughter. I said that would be a conflict of interest given what I do but that I was happy to go with him to the school and see if I could help in some way. So on a Monday morning, we set out and put ourselves in a live of people at the principal's office. The reality is that the school actually looked clean and impressive (it is a central government school known as a Navodaya, instead of the Municipal Corp of Delhi school his daughter attends now) and the people in line looked well dressed and working class. I could see how this would be a school he and his family aspired to.

When the principal saw me and I said I was there to get the little girl beside me into school, she said: "This must be your maid's daughter."
"Driver's," I responded with a fake smile.
"Does he live in Pushp Vihar," she asked referring to the colony.
He lied and said he did. (Actually it's his uncle.)
She asked why he didn't send his daughter for the admission test held the week previous.
"I didn't know about it," he said.
After about 15 more minutes and my begging, she said there was nothing to do but said the child could appear for another test in a week's time.
Back in the car, I let the driver have it for a bunch of reasons: not taking her for the test, waiting until class 3 to get her schooling together, not considering private school even as his kids qualified to attend for free. "But ma'am, if she does well by class 8, they will give her a scholarship of Rs5,000."
"If she attends private school and does well and then goes to college, she can make that every day," I responded.
Next we drove to the offices of the Delhi BJP rep for that area. Another line and everyone seemed to be there to get a letter for school admissions.
A week later, Shruti appeared for the test.
She failed.
And her father is still being boneheaded and won't even let me pay for private school. If I can get her in on a scholarship somewhere, I think he'd agree... So that's my next course of action. Even though I think there is something to the saying that you value something if you are forced to pay for it...

Two Nayaisms

Naya: H is for horse.
Mommy: So what sound does H make?
Naya: Neigh.

AND

Naya: Barack Obama is better than John McCain.
Mommy: How do you know?
Naya: Bhupen Hazarika's friends told me so.

NRI Sojourn

I am back. One day soon, I will post a recap of the day-by-day, play-by play of my time in Guwahati. Until then, just take my word that it was one of the most powerful experiences of my life--between witnessing someone die and being with all of my family under one roof (which finally happened to be OUR roof). Unlike when I went to the village in my childhood, this time I appreciated the rarity of the togetherness and tried to revel in it (in between enlarging photos, hunting for the right brand of mustard oil for use in puja, sitting on the river bank at 6 a.m. for yet another offering to the gods and grandmothers, publishing memorial books, buying more and more disposable cups and plates for all the visitors--all on a diet of boiled rice and potato once a day, the food mandated by someone long ago for the bereaved.)

Because my father couldn't come for his mother's shradh on the 13th day, nor could my mother come for her brother's, I flew to them and we made up our own US version. Shockingly, it was the first formal prayer I could remember my parents having in our house, Naya's annaprasanna not counting. The picture above is courtesy of dear Stony, a friend of my grandmother too, whom he lovingly called Jumbo Jet. Ironically, the gangly white guy at the ceremony of 70 people was the one, who besides we seven Kalitas or Mukuls, had spent the most time with her.

Anyway, once I hit my 20s, I stopped crying uncontrollably when I left India/Assam because the frequency of visits made that seem silly. When I left Assam last week, I felt like I was 12 years old again only I didn't have that angry question I always posed to my parents on the LOOOONG plane ride (usually the awful Romanian Airlines, remember) back: Why did you leave? I don't understand. Why wouldn't we want to live with our grandparents?

Nope, last week, as my uncles (and I) cried more over my departure than when Aita died, I knew the answer, thanks to living here for the last 20 months in an India better off than the one my parents left. As an aside but totally related, the number of people who want me to find government jobs for them in Assam is up to four... My maternal uncle's wife's brother ... does anyone know anyone in public works and engineering in Assam?

The US was more of a blur, although I am glad I went and felt my place for the shradh was more with my nuclear family than the extended. Nitin's show sold out, my brothers took a day off and we went to the beach to relax, etc etc.

On the flight home, a packed Continental nonstop worthy of a ballad, the plane was defined by NRI kids and their weary mothers, all going back for the summer. The one seated in my row was miserable, her mother told me: She has her friends now and doesn't want to spend six weeks in Lucknow. The two boys before me in the customs line were practically bouncing off the walls, they were so excited to see their cousins. And the kids behind me, upon hearing I moved to India, promptly asked their mom: "Why don't we live in India?"

I miss that innocence, miss having a grandmother to go to, even miss fighting with my brothers on the flight.

Naya-isms to round out your life:

(She remains in the US with Nitin, his parents and mine, busy with museum visits, swimming lessons, story hour at library, dance camp and her new best friend Antonio down the street, whose mother MY mother has been having coffee and play dates with. Like I said to my parents, if you had done all this for me, I would have been the most well-adjusted, all-American gal there ever was... No wonder she doesn't want to come back.)

She knows my brothers will let her dress any way she wants so as she wore a yellow-and-blue Fab India kurta with a pink and purple skirt, she did a curtsy before me and said, "In these clothes, I look like a stepmother!"

"Ata (grandpa) eats with his hands so he belongs in India, but I eat with a fork so I will stay in America."

Her pronunciation of binoculars is the definitive Indian accent - BINO-coolers...

And she also has taken to imitating my parents now on the phone. The other day, she sat behind the couch on her play cell phone and said, in Assamese: "Yes we are all fine. Only my mother died."

On that note, I am outta here...

Column on Aita

Hers was a wonderful life

MINT


Wider Angle | S.Mitra Kalita


We had a tradition, my grandmother and I. Every few years, during childhood trips to her village of Sadiya on the banks of the Brahmaputra, I would spend the last night with her. She’d scratch my head and my back and mosquito bites. Often, I sobbed, sorrowful over my impending departure.
She was stronger.
And so last week, it seemed only fitting to be there for her last night, along with about 35 other relatives huddled around a bed in my home in Guwahati.
By coincidence or calling, I was there from the beginning of her end. She saw me, who had conned her way into the intensive care unit before visiting hours, and asked if I wanted to sit, have a cup of tea.
A few hours later, she slipped into a coma.
We were told nothing could be done, so we brought her home.
Even as I write this, I feel numb at what it means to lose the only person who so represented my connection to this country in its reality. Like 40% of India, she was illiterate.
Like about half the population, she was married off before 18 (11, in her case). Like nearly two-thirds, she made her living primarily off the land.
And yet, she was one of a kind.
Over the last week, the stories have come tumbling out.
How she threatened the district’s most infamous dacoit, known as Hemen-goonda, with a kerosene lamp at night and called him a dog.
How she got around her illiteracy by lining the girls on the veranda and having them recite their studies to keep each other in check.
How she ensured the household and farm workers always toiled on a full stomach; “that way, they don’t really care if I yell at them”.
How she told my cousins to stop watching the World Wrestling Federation on TV after she learnt, on a trip to America, that it was really all fake.
Deceit, even as entertainment, had no place in her life. I mourn not as much the loss of the person—at 86, she had had a full life— but the loss of a generation that we can never get back.
Their values, however, are something I suspect to which we will, rather must, return.
Just two months ago, when my grandmother fell and broke her arm, I dropped everything and packed my husband, my daughter and a video camera.
As I wrote in a recent column, this tough-as-nails lady grew tender for the first time and thanked me for coming, told me how much my family and my alleged success mean to her.
She spent some time detailing her life’s philosophy, which—given her background and achievement, in spite of it—might hold some secrets for others.
Namely, she was thrifty. She bargained, counted her money every night, reined in extravagance.
Last week, as I rode autos and taxis to get around Guwahati, I could just hear her cringing that the Rs11 bus would have been a much better option.
She defined family broadly, forced others to think beyond their front gate, and in doing so, stirred them to action. She was often the voice called upon to represent civic concerns. In the 1980s, when a politician and singer and artist Bhupen Hazarika came to call, she chastised them for the sorry conditions of roads, schools and health care in Sadiya (as lore goes, she first fed them, then yelled).
By not being educated, she served as the ultimate example of why it matters. During family gatherings, it was often said: “What would have been if she had learnt to read?” The lack of an answer kept her children and grandchildren always reaching for more.
She was a big believer in long-term planning, even for her own death, from heavy gold bangles cut into eight pieces for each of her children to Rs10,000 she donated for the final shradh’s feast to a cream and gold mekhla chador (Assamese two-piece sari) left for my daughter.
When I contacted local newspapers to run her obituary, one editor told me he didn’t think my grandmother met standards; they preferred business leaders, politicians, “people who have made a big difference”, he told me.
“If she were alive,” I retorted, “she’d say that her life might not amount to much, but people like you will serve her dinner in her next life.”
He laughed and relented.
My obituary included these lines: “It was the end of a remarkable journey that began with her birth in the Kamrup village of Gorput to marriage in Baranghati to settlement in Sadiya, where she spent most of her life. In recent years, Mrs Kalita divided her time among her family’s homes scattered across Guwahati. Her heart—and stories—however remained in an India fast disappearing...”
As I wrote, I shed tears of regret. For so many questions and untold stories remained.
Your comments are welcome at widerangle@livemint.com

Aita - More later

By S. Mitra Kalita

Jambowati Kalita, wife of late Mohan Chandra Kalita, mother to eight,
grandmother to 20, great-grandmother to four and memorable to everyone
she met, breathed her last on 9 June in her son's residence in
Panjabari, surrounded by family and friends. It was the end of a
remarkable journey that began with her birth in the Kamrup village of
Gorput to marriage in Baranghati to settlement in Sadiya, where she
spent most of her life. In recent years, Mrs Kalita divided her time
among her family's homes scattered across Guwahati. Her heart—and
stories—however remained in an India fast disappearing, where
elephants paid respects before reporting to duty, where households
grew their own food and spun their own clothes, where family was an
inclusive word that meant neighbours and extended cousins.
Despite never attending school and being married at age 11, Mrs Kalita
managed to run several enterprises from home (tamul-paan, vegetables,
eggs, pigeons, cow's milk, bamboo), handle her husband's accounts and
even travel to the US and Canada with her thumbprint image as
signature on the passport and visa. She often detailed what she
learned in the West, from the efficiency of roads and cleanliness to
the tangible loneliness ("Sometimes all you will see the whole day is
one bird," she'd say) to the culturally profound ("Wrestling is fake.
Everyone in America knows.")
During World War II, Mrs Kalita recalled, she would run into an
underground tunnel with her family as soon as she heard the planes
overhead. She lived through the earthquake of 1950, playing a role
with her husband in the rebuilding of a ravaged Sadiya. In the 1980s,
when an MLA came to visit with the singer, artist and Sadiya native Dr
Bhupen Hazarika, Mrs Kalita sat them in her drawing room and listed
all the ways they needed to improve conditions: better roads, schools,
health care. Frequently, she was the voice enlisted by the local
community to articulate their demands. Mrs Kalita feared no one, not
the frequent dacoits and thugs omnipresent in the India of then and
now; at night, if they tried to threaten her neighbours, she would go
out with a kerosene lamp and yell, "Who is this dog who has come?"
(Fittingly, she died on the day of an Asom Bandh.)
She straddled traditional values with modernity and advocacy of
progress. Her three daughters never felt their gender was an obstacle.
Because her illiteracy prevented her from supervising studies, Mrs
Kalita forced her children to shout answers from work tables on the
veranda so they could check each other. Today, each daughter—Nirupama
Mahanta, Bimala Deka, Jyosna Deka—is working professionally.
With each of her sons, too, she shared a special relationship. Her
eldest, Mohesh Chandra Kalita, retired as a vice president from
Citibank, and lives in New Jersey. Her next, Krishna Kanto Kalita,
retired as general manager, Numaligarh Refinery Ltd, and currently
works as an adviser with the ministry of health and family welfare.
Her next three sons carried on the family's businesses: transport,
cultivation, contracting. She cared deeply for her middle son, Jogen
Chandra Kalita, treating each of his three children as her own. Her
next son, Dharani Dhar Kalita, inherited Mrs Kalita's curiosity, love
of storytelling and being with people. As for the last, Mitra Ranjan
Kalita, Mrs Kalita most likened her own temper to his, although she
also passed on decency and a sense of humour.
For her grandchildren, Mrs Kalita served as the ultimate source of
inspiration and a reminder that anything is possible. Like all
grandmothers, she indulged them but, unlike many, was not
materialistic in her demonstration of love. She sought to remind each
of them of their rural roots, how lucky they were but how far they
still had to go—always with hard work and honesty. At family
gatherings, people often remarked: What would have been if she had
been given access to education?
The lack of an answer implicitly conveyed the importance of
learning—for one's entire life.
Her words and ways could be harsh and damning, yet honest. She
remained calculating, shrewd, highly observant, frugal to her last
day.
Yet Mrs Kalita never let a visitor leave without sharing a cup of
tea—and a trip down memory lane. In her final months, her own memory
failed her but she resurrected images of pre-independence Sadiya as a
British outpost and the details of each of her children's births and
temperaments as babies.
While movement to Guwahati was a necessity for the family, it was
clear Mrs Kalita preferred the days where all lived under one roof and
could be self-reliant. Ironically, in death she was granted that wish
as everyone—from seven of eight children to her American-born
granddaughter to her sister-in-law, who once lived down the road in
Sadiya—was by her side as she passed.
Her larger-than-life presence is missed but her family takes solace
and inspiration from her longevity and strength, a purposeful but
divergent path. In her children, grandchildren and the countless
people she impressed and touched, her lessons and stories will always
endure.

Mama Mia...

My uncle died yesterday. He was my mother's elder brother, with a daughter exactly my age and another boy. My paternal grandmother, who could never keep track of my mother's seven brothers by name, used to call him "engineer mama". We called him Naupa Mama.
I didn't know him as well as my other mamas who used to take me to get Thums Up across the street (Bapu Mama) or bring me Gems candy regularly (Deep Mama) or stick his finger in my mouth to tell me he knew exactly what I had eaten (Bapkhan Mama). But he was definitely a fixture in our visits to India. Last week, when my aunt called and told me his kidneys had failed and the dialysis wasn't working, she told me they were pretty much just waiting for the end.
So last night, as I was at my friend Himanshu's for dinner, the call came and I knew as soon as I heard my aunt's voice. He had just died 10 minutes ago. I glanced at the wine in my hand and had a lump in my throat but didn't cry.
The calls with bad news, of course, have been coming as long as I've been alive. And I could always tell you where I was. When I was 7, it was my maternal grandfather -- and my mom was pregnant with Rahul; I was upstairs when the call came. When I was 9, it was my father's cousin, a murder detailed in the economic space of a blue aerogram; I was in the hall where we kept the crib and I started screaming. When I was 10, it was my mom's elder brother and I remember I was reading one of the Babysitter's Clubs where Claudia was the main character (was it number 2) and my mom fell down on the stair landing of our house in shock. That one, I think, hit us hardest, most unexpected, a heart attack, a scurry to the hospital, finally death in an auto rickshaw. When I was 13, my grandfather died and I remember feeling intensely sad because I had spent most of my childhood afraid of the funny way he talked, due to paralysis; it was the middle of the night and I remember my cousin was staying with us and I was embarassed to cry in front of him so I poured water into a steel glass and covered my choked-up-ness by taking sips. Six months later, my maternal grandmother died and I remember how much harder it seemed to strike my mother than when her father died. In between, there were a few baby cousins, a few close friends and neighbours from Assam. Common to all was the absolute helplessness with which we grieved and watched from afar.
I thought moving to India might have made things different but if anything it makes me ache for the family literally on both sides of me -- my maternal extended family in Assam and my mother in New Jersey. She has been counting down Nitin and Naya's upcoming visit and isn't coming here for the funeral and last rites. So I will likely go and represent for the 13th day of mourning - shradho - next week. And then the week after, I think I will go to the US for a few days. Expensive options but possibly best for the mental health, which really is beginning to wear and shouldn't be alone for a six-week stretch, I have decided.
As we did in the US, we turn to ritual to get us through-- we will be vegetarian for 13 days (or less). We will pray and light incense sticks stuck in a banana. We will call our relatives every day and ask for details and they will offer others we didn't ask but are curious to know. My aunt: They dressed him real nice. I gave him so many kisses before they took him off. Your other uncle waited till his body had entirely burned before they left. His wife was sound asleep when we got there; she then bathed and dressed in widow white and still seemed very despondent.
Today I left work early to get the details and my aunt described the day; as she told me everyone arriving by dawn to begin dressing the body and preparing it for cremation, I finally broke down. For my uncle's loss, of course. But also that I missed out on the remaining seven siblings coming together for the first time in a very long time. Two have died. And one, my mother, remained in America.

Nayaism

Naya: When I grow up I want to be a painter and a Mint worker.

And then this morning...

Mommy: What colour are your eyes?
Naya: Black and white.

Iowa sounds just like India!

This sounds more like a worker in Delhi than Des Moines...

“Do they have a free gym, dry cleaning, Starbucks on site?” he said. “What are they doing to make the community better? And once you’re there, companies know they have to promote you to keep you. We’re a little spoiled in our opportunities here.”

See story here.

Cricket

This week's column was inspired by a trip the three of us took last week to a cricket match between the New Delhi Dare Devils and the Mumbai Indians. We were prepared to have to shove through crowds and ask 38 people which way to go but were amazed at the signage, cordoned-off areas, orderly lines and cops who actually knew where gate 6 was. I think the Republic Day parade needs to ask the cricket folks to handle their crowd control. Nitin printed out pages on "how to follow cricket" from some web site. Naya kept saying she was looking for Dhoni. I thought we might get bored halfway through but about 20 minutes into the game, thanks to our friend Seema's commentary and the hordes of people around us, we got really into it. Definitely faster than baseball--which makes me wonder what the heck people are talking about when they say it's a cross between baseball and sleeping or such nonsense. I loved it and even yelled "VIRU" for the star Sehwag... but once Delhi's fourth batter scored low, we thought our team was doomed--and we left. Big mistake. While we were in the car, some guy came to bat and scored 56 runs! Oh well, we learned a few lessons.

naya

The other day in the bath:

Naya: Mommy, when you want something, you just have to ask God. Like, God, can I please have some toffees. And then he will give you toffees.

Today:
When I am on laptop...
Naya: Mommy, you should write about mommys and papas who play ball with their baby.

Nayaisms you might not like

Girls only fight with girls because boys are more important.

Mommy: Naya, what should I write my column on?
Naya: Ummmm. How about "good people who eat cheese?"

Is it a happy mother's day?

www.livemint.com

Is it a happy mother’s day?
Working parents in one survey spend just a half-hour a day nurturing their own kids. It's time to wake up
Wider Angle | S.Mitra Kalita
I know you think it’s you. But it’s not.
The award for Worst Mother of the Year goes to…me.
I turn my laptop on the minute I get home. I pretend to listen to my daughter’s stories as I frantically volley replies on BlackBerry. On weekends, I relish the chance to sleep in and let the maids deal with bath and breakfast and the most dreaded chore—brushing little teeth, especially those hard-to-reach, squirm-inducing back ones.
Two days before the world celebrates the joy and wonders of motherhood and thanks us who have dutifully filled and then emptied our wombs, I hang my head in shame and hardly think I deserve any special attention. Really, as a mother, I am a failure.
Well, sometimes.
Because that’s just the way parenthood is. Unlike our daily jobs, there are no benchmarks to success. Just when you think happy kids are the goal, a child psychologist or teacher will instruct you to let sadness occasionally wash over them, “so they can learn to deal with it on their own,” as one educator recently told me.
Nobody ever chastises working parents. We pat each other on the back, then say: “She’ll be fine. You’re doing the best you can.” Experts advise parents not to give into guilt.
I disagree. It’s time.
This week, The Times of India reported the results of a survey that find working parents spend only 30 minutes “nurturing their own children”. Not surprisingly, more than 85% of the 3,000 working couples in the study gave themselves a negative rating as bad parents. “Parents are working not only out of economic compulsion but also to cash in on their technical and professional qualification,” the study said. “Parents that work long or irregular hours are not available for children after school, and especially to help with the homework, ...and not able to do things together at weekends or eat together.”
Even on Sundays, when companies are allegedly off, working couples report being consumed with the endless tasks involved in running a household: paying bills, cleaning, going shopping.
The study illustrates the net effect of several societal shifts in the middle class. More and more couples are both working. Fewer families have the grandparents around. The demands at work are enormous: first, to sustain the growth in the economy and now to ensure all is not lost in case of a slowdown. Sadly, childcare has really not caught up; due to the sorry state of education in rural and poor India, most people’s maids have not even the nurturing instinct of one Mary Poppins bone. Creches are a fast booming business, but concerns over hygiene, safety and space persist. Parents who spend Rs5,000 on a meal quibble about spending half that to keep a good maid around.
In 10 years, will the neglect show? Is this study foreshadowing a future generation of kids who are needy, lack confidence, resent our success at their expense? Possibly.
Every now and then, when my mothering sinks to the all-time low I describe here, when my husband and I are both on deadlines and our daughter seems to crave even just a glance from us, something more powerful than the desire to achieve and excel washes over me: Mommy Guilt.
It is a most powerful and necessary warning. It inspires me to leave the laptop behind (or at least the cord so the battery dies in an hour). It forces me, no matter how pressed for time, to incorporate my daughter into my daily activities, if only to spend a few more minutes with her; we bathe, we brush, we banter. We reconnect.
This week’s findings, released by trade chamber Assocham’s Social Development Foundation, must inspire collective guilt, triggering changes at home and work. If reducing hours is not an option, children must be more effectively integrated into our lives, shopping to dining out. As parents have moved towards managing without their own parents around, so too might they learn to manage sometimes without another appendage: maids.
The rearing and nurturing of children in India is in crisis. Besides parents taking responsibility, workplaces will need to react quickly with flexible scheduling, not just to watch children but to take care of chores such as doctor appointments and car servicing. The risk of not reacting is to lose a diverse, necessary part of the workforce; according to Assocham, just 21% of mothers with young families want to work full-time, with an overwhelming majority preferring part-time work alongside raising their children.
Even as us working parents beat ourselves up, there’s some irony in what most motivates us: our children. To provide for them, to make the world a better place for them. Working mothers like me, with girls, try hard to set an example of the type of women they can be.
But in the end, our long hours and business plans really mean nothing without ensuring growth and vitality— of our most precious assets of all.
Your comments are welcome at widerangle@livemint.com

It's all about who you know

http://www.livemint.com/2008/05/01230250/It8217s-about-who-you-know.html

Wider Angle | S.Mitra Kalita


All he did was “put in a word”.
That is how Union shipping, road transport and highways minister T.R. Baalu defended his move to procure gas for two companies owned by his two wives (yes, two) and sons, companies that happened to be previously headed by him.
According to news agency Press Trust of India (PTI), Baalu admitted he had spoken to petroleum and natural gas minister Murli Deora to ensure gas was allocated. “I put in a word with the petroleum minister,” Baalu told Parliament, according to a PTI report. “What is wrong with it?”
He didn’t add what he very likely also felt, what many of us realize on a day-to-day basis: That’s just the way life goes in India. Everyone uses connections or else nothing gets done.
Right?
If you’re squirming with discomfort, recognition, uncertainty, you’re not alone. For, many of us—from salaried professionals to the working poor —largely accept that bribes are wrong: Paying or gifting someone to grease the wheels is immoral, corrupt. But pulling a favour to get the job done?
It happens.
Think about it. Need to get your three-year-old into nursery school? One after another, the calls go out to principals and board members of elite schools—or their friends and family. Attached to applications are the letters vouching for your child and your character from Prominent People.
How can a retail entrepreneur secure the licences needed to stock yarn, put up signs or even play terrible background music? It’s time to make rounds among The Influential.
This deep tapping into networks is especially acute in this connection-conscious Capital, but other cities certainly suffer their share, too. By no means is India alone, but the problem worsens here because connections, often, must be relied upon to get the littlest thing done.
It is not just the government to blame. Even as the growth of the private sector has spoiled us for choice, it has created new hurdles to getting services smoothly. Well educated and intentioned they may be, but bank tellers rarely have a clue about foreign exchange or money transfers. The cashier who fields your mobile payment has little power to do much else, like print out a bill statement from six months ago. And so we seek out those second and third cousins who work at Citibank and Vodafone for rescue.
Every time I raise this issue, old-timers shrug, saying: “It used to be so much worse.” One writer on the blog, Mutiny.in, reminds, “In the ’70s, if you wanted to buy any car anywhere in India, money wasn’t the problem. The waiting period was. It ranged from a few months to a few years depending on the model and your political connections.”
But guess why he raised this point? Recently, the blogger noted that folks eager to book the Rs1 lakh Tata Nano were already in queue, buttering up dealers and plastering automobile websites with their emails and phone numbers so they could be first.
So, how much has really changed?
Are there just shades of grey between paying a bribe and invoking a connection? In many cases, the answer might lie in our professions. Politicians, journalists, government contractors should be held to higher standards because for them, a favour is rarely just a favour (for a copy of Mint’s code of conduct, visit www.livemint.com).
The more important question is why the straight and direct route is failing so many Indians. Crumbling schools, tight regulations, lack of access, crooked civil servants, all of the above? As with much of middle-class woe, if it’s tough for us, the poor and lesser connected are the real victims.
“The normal systems have collapsed in most spheres in life,” says Arvind Kejriwal, the former bureaucrat who pioneered the right to information movement. “If you normally apply for something, you wouldn’t get it, even if you deserve it, so you need connections or money. The people who have connections feel comfortable about it. But if I don’t have connections, I’ll say it’s a rotten system.”
In Baalu’s case, it has been revealed that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, master of the art of crafting a squeaky clean image—even in India—made “certain references” on the shipping minister’s behalf to secure gas. Of course, the implication of the Prime Minister’s Office getting involved is more damning: Give this guy his gas—and whatever else he wants.
The actions in regards to Baalu and his family’s companies smack of nepotism and cronyism. If only the elected would show so much concern over the public they represent. We wouldn’t even need 10,000 cubic metres, as Baalu requested.
In fact, I think most Indian households would settle for just a letter from the Prime Minister’s Office guaranteeing steady power in these summer months.
And maybe, for good measure, he’d throw in an extra gas cylinder?
Your comments are welcome at ­widerangle@livemint.com

Naya's story - verbatim

One day Radha and Krishna went to the park. They went on a slide. Then they climbed up the mandir and went to see a movie--with earphones. They went to see Ratatouille. Then they came down a bridge and took off their earphones. There was a big big big party. Everyone was dancing. Even the trees were dancing. It was beautiful.

Naya-isms all in one

Many funny things going on:

Yesterday, my friend Michael and his son were visiting Delhi and when we got back into the house, Naya and Ayaan greeted us.

Michael: Oh, wow, Naya, is this your friend?
Naya: No, he's my boyfriend.

Naya is surely, but very slowly, learning how to read. So she has a book of words and today she spells out: "S-O-C-K-S"
Mommy: Very good!
Naya: S-O-C-K-S spells muja!!
(Muja is the Assamese and Hindi word for socks. So if she never learns to read, at least she can serve as a translator...)

Then she saw the words C-U-P and said, "That spells cup."
Mommy: Very good.
Naya: Oh Mommy, I am so proud of you. (big hugs followed and I think she was hinting that I should have said it to her)
Mommy: Thank you.
Naya: Mommy, what does 'proud of you' mean?

The Royal Treatment

So I have been holding out on where we went last weekend... Read on...

http://www.livemint.com/2008/04/25000400/A-touch-of-royal.html

Even before any probing, pressing, caressing, the new spa -- Kaya Kalp -- at the ITC Mughal in Agra invokes sensory overload
S. Mitra Kalita
New Delhi

About 99,000 sq. ft of massage and treatment rooms, workout and yoga space, gardens and fountains. Lavender wafting through the air. Stark red pomegranate motifs on floors and walls, a nod to Emperor Babur’s favourite fruit.
Spa junction: Bathe together in the couple suite. (Photograph courtesy ITC Mughal)
Spa junction: Bathe together in the couple suite. (Photograph courtesy ITC Mughal)
But being overwhelmed is not relaxing and so, the real test of the just-opened Kaya Kalp–The Royal Spa will actually be in transporting the stressed-out set to places far, far away from big and busy. Based on my recent experience, it will succeed precisely because of the attention to the little: water fragranced with cucumber and orange slices, the delicate cymbals chimed at the end of an ayurvedic treatment, decorative marble candle holders reminiscent of the behemoth ode to love nearby.
Offerings range from salon standards—haircuts, manicures, pedicures and facials—to elaborate packages known as “journeys” that can last up to three hours. The spa claims it is Asia’s largest, as well as the first in India, to offer the Turkish bath known as a hammam.
And so, I began my journey.
I lay on a marble slab, stripped of clothing, dignity and tension all at once. The steam around me blinded, suffocated, hypnotized but dozens of candles danced through the haze, their light bouncing off tiny mirrors and creating rainbows around the room. Just when fainting felt imminent, hard sprays of cold water awakened and invigorated. In life, two distinct stages force human beings to be bathed at the hands of another: childhood and old age. Thus, the hammam, a meeting of a sauna, bath and massage in one, might startle those of us in the active, independent purgatory of middle age. But it is well worth getting over such inhibitions because being cleansed, lathered, rubbed in this manner felt like the very embodiment of what a spa should be.
“Remember a spa is about water,” reminds Christine Hays, the operations head who has spent the last eight months overseeing the conversion of ITC Mughal’s gardens into this decadent space. She recounts how the spa designers sent pieces of electrical equipment for modern-day treatments and she simply stored them away, explaining: “Everything has to be so natural and hands on.”
For the unique, transcendental experience, the hammam (Rs4,400 for 100 minutes) should be tried. But, if you’re looking for a strong rub with your knots and stress in someone’s firm hands, this might not be the best option. The 30-minute tension reliever (Rs1,500) is a more affordable blend of the pointed nature of Thai massage with the longer strokes of, say, a Swedish.
The entrance to Kaya Kalp (Photograph courtesy ITC Mughal)
The entrance to Kaya Kalp (Photograph courtesy ITC Mughal)
Notably, here, I finally learnt to embrace ayurvedic massage. In massages past, I have often just wanted to get up from the oily table and yell at the well-intentioned women in sync to stop sliding and teasing, to start applying pressure already. For those who value the healing and natural elements of ayurveda, ITC’s spa offers three rituals. I tried the hot herbal poultice massage (60 minutes for Rs3,500), which relies on a ball of herbs dipped in hot oil— “You could eat it,” Hays assures—to move across the body. The pressure of the ball on the joints across my legs and arms was especially welcome. And the soft wad perfectly juggles gliding yet applying pressure; there is none of that panic-inducing feeling that someone’s fingers might fracture your spine.
Kaya Kalp also offers a chakra balancing gem stone massage (60 minutes for Rs3,000) that seemed to incorporate similar elements as the herbal ball, but with the use of stones; this is also the massage given to couples during the Taj Mahal romance journey, which, for Rs15,000, gets the two of you three hours of rubbing, bathing, feeding and loving (the masseurs give you a 5-minute knock as a warning before entering so you can go wild in the tub strewn with rose petals).
Roses and red are striking themes throughout; some massages begin with dipping feet into a bowl of water with petals. The observatory garden outback is still being worked on, and when it cools down, outdoor massages will be added. The pool, which is only for users above the age of 15, follows the sharp lines and maze-like arrangement of the garden. At night, the candles, shooting fountains and sprays of mist overhead inspire literal and metaphoric reflection.
“The Mughals were known for opulence,” explains Anil Chadha, general manager at the ITC Mughal. “They were very aspirational.” That puts them pretty much on par with the target customer here.
Like the backs it kneads, Kaya Kalp has a few kinks to work out. For a place that has promised such a Mughal experience, background music veered into the new age or elevator ambience at times. The couches and interior décor feels heavy, expected of the Mughals, but not necessarily cozy. The addition of some rituals, such as tea or healthy snacks while you wait, might help loosen the atmosphere up.
While prices are affordable by five-star spa standards, a few packages blending the works—say, manicure, pedicure, facial and massage—would likely do well, especially for the stressed who are time pressed. Unquestionably though, ITC Mughal’s spa has admirably fashioned itself into a destination in a city where most are lured by another awe-inspiring structure. So, while visitors are off seeing the fruits of one man’s devotion, stay behind, for Kaya Kalp is a divine place to pay homage to what should be your greatest love of all: you.

Have the tables turned

A little preface to this week's column...

A few weeks ago, when I was in Chennai, I interviewed literally dozens of candidates.
One guy proudly told me that he already had three offers.
"From where?" I asked.
He named two companies. And then he named my employer.
"But I haven't made you an offer yet?"
"You will," he said. "My profile is something everybody's after."
I wasn't.

Here u go...


By S. Mitra Kalita

Is this the beginning of the end?
Not of incredible India or even shiny India, for that matter. Not of favourable export-import ratios or affordable food prices. After all, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal earlier this week, finance minister P. Chidambaram already read his prescient tea leaves and broke the bad news: The party is winding down.
He braced Indians for slower growth—and the flurry of earnings out this week point toward the same downward trend.
But, what I really wonder about is the future of another imbalance that has come to define this economy of recent good tides and fortune: between employer and employee.
For too long, Indian companies have engaged in a game where employers— strapped for great talent and strong mid-level managers—are held hostage by their workers, tiptoeing around them, resorting to better canteen food and themed office parties to impress, essentially living in fear that employees will leave and take all the pricey training and precious time invested with them. Over the last few months, that feeling has intensified as workers hold out for their year-end bonuses and increments to give notice or even make decisions about leaving.
Yet this season, unlike recent years past, is seeing a new entrant to workplace woe: layoffs.
It all started back in February when Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), the country’s largest services provider, announced that it had asked 500 underperforming staffers to leave. Through reviews and performance evaluations, employees are ranked from a scale of 1 to 5. Those who score a 2 or less are put on a plan to help them improve— and if there’s no sign of improvement, TCS “disengages” with them.
The move is not entirely new at TCS, which let 500 people go in all of the last fiscal year and already has “disengaged” 500 in the first three quarters of this year—sending a stark message to its more than 100,000 employees and the rest of the tech sector. Given weaker-than-anticipated results reported earlier this week, more such pink slips might be on the way.
On Monday, Mint reported the news of Yes Bank letting go of nearly 400 employees in the first quarter of the year, also for non-performance.
“Individuals who do not fit into the service culture and performance parameters of the bank mutually go their own ways in order to sustain the highly motivated business environment of the bank,” Deodutta Kurane, president of human capital, which is to say human resources, at Yes Bank, told Mint in an email.
Likely, a lot of young Indians have been reading the headlines and feeling panic over layoffs. In reality, though, the panic should be setting in over another word: non-performance.
That is the one thing there is no place for in a slowing economy. We who thought we were working harder than ever to keep up with the pace of double-digit growth—and triple digit in the case of many of our employers —have not seen anything yet.
The only comparison I can make is when I visited India just around the time of the dot-com bubble bursting in 2001 and a human resources manager in Chennai bluntly described the sentiment of his office: “You need to constantly run to stand where you are. Every day is a day where you ­deliver.”
Seven years later, the workplace is not that different—but India is. Even as the talent crunch grew more acute and workers more valued, attitudes towards layoffs have changed—everyone, after all, is dispensable; high attrition rates have taught us that much. In the rush to hire freshers, companies made offers and promises years ahead of schedule—which many are surely going to have to rethink, as TCS’ move has shown.
In the next few months, Indians will discover they will have to work doubly hard to fight from losing all they have built. They will need to prove worth and value to their employers. And, unlike the boom times, mediocrity and slack work ethic cannot be masked by growth. In many sectors of the last few years, we have moved from zero to acceleration. That is the easy part.
Now comes the hard part: to innovate, hang on to clients and customers to tap new markets. The exuberance and overconfidence of recent times will be knocked down, making way for good old-fashioned sweat equity.
Call me sadistic, but I welcome the reality check—at least when it comes to the new equilibrium it might bring about between employers and employees.
Despite the dire projections of many companies this week, a study carried out by industry chamber, the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry, said foreign information technology firms plan to proceed with hiring 40,000 people in India by 2010.
No need to complacently cheer or gloat yet. The recent spate of layoffs and warnings to non-performers still send an important message.
It’s time to get cracking—or else.
Your comments are welcome at ­widerangle@livemint.com

Kajal

My favourite actress has let me down... U Me Aur Hum royally sucked. You name a cliche - instant love, drunken machismo, strange Europeans of unknown origins lurking about, random disease -- and this was the movie. Oh how could she!

Accepting exile, sweet exile

From Mint

The Tibetans are willing to die for it. The Americans are in a recession partly because of it. In India, we take for granted just how many we have, how complex it actually is.
Home.
Everyone, it seems, is fighting, longing, searching for a place to call their own. I don’t make light of that struggle, but this week—against the backdrop of the alternative Torch for Tibet relay and my own journey to a place that is allegedly mine—I wondered if the concept of home, as in one geographical location to which we are anchored, committed, rooted, might be inherently flawed.
The epiphany came around 1 o’clock in the morning on the Assamese new year known as Bihu. With my husband and daughter, two cousins and a friend, I sat in a cracked red plastic chair sinking into the mud made by a recent rain and watched a woman crooning into a microphone. She didn’t sound bad, but not great either. Nearby, a pack of young men smoked and I resisted the urge to ask them not to, so close to my three-and-a-half-year-old they were. It had taken us an hour to get here, an hour fighting traffic and other festival revellers. And, that was after a day spent dodging relatives’ demands that I come visit all 50 of their homes in Guwahati even as I explained that the goal of my sudden trip was to spend time with my sick grandmother and show my daughter the beauty of Assamese culture during this colourful month. She has celebrated every year, of course, but always in far-off places as church halls in New Jersey, a friend’s place in Washington, DC and an auditorium in New Delhi.
I thought going home would offer a more authentic experience.
“Where are the dancers?” my daughter asked me.
“Where is the laru-pitha?” my husband chimed in, referring to the sweet foods of Bihu. (When I was a child, my parents and their friends used to buy very all-American doughnut holes and offer them to us as a substitute, unable to find ingredients to make the real thing. Eventually, they learnt to ­improvise.)
“This is not New Jersey or even New Delhi,” I responded. “It’s not like you can get Bihu out of a box.”
But when a group of guys offstage started fighting each other with sticks and the police hauled a bloodied ­teenager away by his collar, I agreed it was time to go. In the versions of Bihu my parents regaled me and my brothers with, there was so such violent reminiscence.
Yet, why would they have tainted their picture?
For the transplant, home becomes but a nostalgic figment of the imagination, a make-believe place where you can pick and choose what to crave, to miss, to remember. It is ideal and utopian, even as the quest to recapture it impossible and dangerous.
Somehow, though, we keep trying.
In the case of the Tibetans, it is an understandable desire, an exile that has been imposed. Earlier this month, Mint reported the story of two Tibetan friends who shared a longing for a homeland, a fervour for the movement but held different passports—one Indian and another a refugee card. Explained one young activist: “If you hold an Indian passport, people think you have lost your nationalism.”
If only India did not kowtow to fears and insecurities of China by keeping the torch—a celebratory, unifying symbol of multiple lands and cultures —in a virtual police state with 20,000 officers and countless blocked roads. What a gesture it would have been if India showed the world it was possible to support both an exiled people and the goals of the Olympics. Indians, after all, have mastered the art of straddling multiple homes and loyalties.
And, if only the Chinese understood that the freedom to go back at anytime, to assert one’s place, is what keeps so many of us away. For, all too often there is no going back.
Strangely, this week’s sudden feeling of not belonging anywhere—a feeling I have fought my whole life, from lonely tables in school canteens to the navigation of office politics—was one of great relief, as though a lifetime riddle had just been solved. Like a lot of Indians from places other than the ones they live and work, I will now never have to respond to that eternal question: Where are you from?
That muggy night, we trudged back and crawled under mosquito nets to go to sleep. The next morning, I sat next to my grandmother, suffering from a broken arm, weak joints and severe dementia, as she asked me when I had arrived and when I would be going back to America. We had been through this exercise every day.
I reminded her I live in New Delhi.
“Still, you’re far away. To me, it’s all the same,” she said. “But I am so glad you came. It really means a lot to me.”
I was shocked. My tough-as-nails grandmother has never been the tender, emoting type—except when angry.
A few minutes later, I tearfully touched her feet and kissed her goodbye, realizing her confusion had left me with a lucid lesson and a pure definition of home—among many.
Your comments are welcome at ­widerangle@livemint.com

Naya's first day of school

Report from Nitin:
She didn't cry even though a lot of other kids did. She said she played outside and sang songs. And this being a new big school, compared to the playschool where she always took a tiffin, she told Nitin: We ate in a restaurant for lunch. That would be the school canteen/cafeteria. Hah... I might have missed her first day of school but I caught the Nayaisms.

Mommy guilt

I have to go on a business trip tomorrow so I will miss Naya's first day of school. I was putting her to sleep tonight (after helping her pick out outfit for said first day) and I said, "I will miss you, Naya. I don't want to go."
She said, "Don't go."
I said, "Really?"
She said, "No, you can go but you said you don't want to go so I said 'don't go'."
Then it started thundering...
Naya looks at me and smiles, "It's raining. Now you can't go to Chennai. You don't have an umbrella."

Nursery admissions opus

Everything you could ever want to know about schools, India, admissions and us.

http://www.livemint.com/2008/04/05001858/Wanted-Exceptional-parents.html

Enjoy...

A question...

Am hoping some RNRIs will write in. When things don't go your way in India - the gas is out, the maid doesn't show up, traffic -- what do you do? Is there a magic thing I can say or do to keep from getting so angry and cursing a whole country instead of that piece of the puzzle...

Columns

Recent ones:

About government in India:

http://www.livemint.com/2008/03/28002017/Good-guys-of-government.html

About the IITs:

http://www.livemint.com/Articles/2008/03/21002013/IIT8217s-new-social-network.html

About Indian marriages:

http://www.livemint.com/Articles/2008/03/14001938/Saving-the-Indian-marriage.html

Naya

Naya had two big firsts on Friday... She had two pieces in an art show sponsored by Red Earth. And she wrote her name for the first name, all by herself.

And today she did something else kinda cool -- she translated in Hindi for me on the phone. I am interviewing a driver and she said, "Come today please," and when he asked what time, she made it up and said, "Ummmm 4 oclock." Luckily that time works for me :)

The columns are back

Some of you are not going to livemint.com - shame on you - so I am posting the columns from the last few weeks here in one swoop so you can get my thoughts on the Tata Nano $2200 car, job placements at the Indian Institutes of Management, vocation education and men... Among other themes. Have fun.

Get IIMs out of matchmaking

They are supposed to be the best and the brightest, the future business leaders of this booming nation that needed them ready yesterday. They attend classes that encourage innovation, thinking outside the box, challenging convention.
Before taking on corporate India though, students at the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) need to apply their lessons a little closer to home. Job placements have been unfolding this week at several elite business schools. Like years past, a sea of stress and black suits marks both sides of the table.
Indeed, interviews should force preparation and cause some palpitation. But the placement process has evolved into a scramble for a certain “A” list on “Day Zero” with the crumbs left for companies deemed second-rate in the alphabet soup of IT (information technology) and FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods). The lousy feeling, of course, extends to the students who are interviewed by these once sunrise darlings of the placement process and so, their experience goes a little something like this:
“Investment banking represents a challenge and I love working with numbers and I aspire to go overseas.”
Rejection.
“Consulting plays to my greatest strength—strategizing and problem-solving. I love working with clients and building relationships quickly.”
Rejection.
“FMCG is booming. I have had many opportunities to go overseas, but home is where the action is… Patna to start, you say? I’d go there. Tier II towns represent our future.”
You get the picture. Suddenly, a large chunk of the batch has multiple personality disorder as they very horizontally hop among “verticals”.
In many ways, the placement process represents the culmination of what’s wrong with business schools today. Students don’t know what they want. Understandably. At IIM Ahmedabad, the class of 2008 consists of 43% freshers. At Harvard Business School, the same batch has an average four-and-a-half years of work experience.
While the premier Indian School of Business (ISB) and even the IIMs increasingly encourage applying with experience, the number of MBA aspirants whose exposure to the workplace amounts to visiting parents at the office is scary. Even that other brightest of the bright group—graduates of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs)—fuels the trend by applying for IIM right after graduation. Work experience? A whopping month of internship.
Besides links with the private sector and superb infrastructure, a part of the reason for ISB’s success is that students do their best learning from each other. They can swap stories about dealing with difficult bosses, wooing international clients, and the pluses and minuses of certain sectors.
Sadly, ISB’s pioneering spirit falters when it comes to placements; its campus last month, according to observers, felt as much a circus of stress, tension and inadequate interviews as its government-run counterparts this week. Business schools also need to recognize that there is nothing wrong with less than 100% placement; graduates who take time to find their passion or dream job or start a business should be celebrated.
Besides candidates, employers also jockey for prime recruitment positions and try to strong-arm candidates into taking their offers. Obviously, the integrity of the recruitment process can help determine whether or not an offer is accepted. Why then are companies bad-mouthing other employers, forcing decisions to be made right away, even refusing to participate if they don’t obtain a Day Zero entrance? A lot of top business schools, in response, now have two Day Zeroes—mere semantics to assuage ego.
The American way is not necessarily the solution either. For example, I attended a government-run college and, despite a stellar education, can’t remember a thing the place did to help me get a job. My brother, alternatively, attended one of the Top 10 universities in the US and went through 40 interviews before choosing a gig. Neither scenario is ideal.
But to the US’ credit, in good economic times and bad, employers generally give coveted candidates time and space to make a decision. They bring them back to meet more people, tour the office, dine with immediate supervisors and future colleagues. It helps ferret out the candidates who are just GOP—good on paper. Any recruiter in India can regale you with tales of the surfeit of GOPs at the IIMs.
There is little reason for institutes to play the role of meddlesome matchmaker. Career centres, information sessions, advice on interviews, resumés, even wardrobe—all of those are still needed. But IIMs can best serve applicants and the private sector by staying out of the way. If students had to fend for themselves as adults and home in on goals and desired profile, they might focus less on the brand and salary—and more on the work.

Develop skills and minds

http://www.livemint.com/Articles/2008/02/21230612/Develop-skills-and-minds.html

"Please, ba, find me a job,” begins my cousin’s whine.
“How on earth can I do that?” I ask. “Where?”
“GAIL, SAIL, Oil India—any of those would be my dream,” he says.
“You know nothing about gas…or steel…or oil,” I say, exasperated. “Besides, what was all that schooling for?”
My cousin has a bachelor’s degree in economics, a master’s degree in the same, a law degree and is pursuing a master’s in law. He is the most educated among the dozens of 20-something relatives I have—yet has struggled to find steady employment. So, we have this dialogue at least weekly.
Every time I read about India’s talent shortage—or even as I myself frame it using words such as “crunch” and “crisis”—I ponder if the countless youth scattered across the country in my cousin’s predicament would agree with the characterization. According to a report by TeamLease Services, 57% of India’s youth suffer from some degree of unemployability, while 75% of those who finish school make less than Rs75,000 annually.
This week, policymakers and labour ministry officials met in New Delhi to formulate a training policy for India. The government has announced that an area fuzzily known as “skills development” is expected to get a whopping Rs31,000 crore in the 11th Plan, the five-year blueprint that lays out its objectives. Compare that with the mere Rs350 crore spent on skills development in the 10th Plan. Inevitably, finance minister P. Chidambaram’s Budget next week will begin the big boost in spending.
For the ground reality, I headed to the small, shabby South Delhi Polytechnic for Women, which sits behind the prestigious Lady Shri Ram College. It is polytechnics such as this one that the government seeks to replicate nationwide to lift to those who need it most. Ironically, in the mid-1990s, as founder Ashima Chaudhuri discovered that being approved by the government meant limiting seats and offerings, she decided to shirk affiliation and moved to a system of vocational courses that don’t offer degrees, but the promise of jobs. Courses in jewellery design and catering, childhood development and office administration, media and fashion last anywhere from one year to four years.
What strikes Chaudhuri most is that more Indians are coming to her with actual college degrees, unable to find employment because they have no technical skill. For example, I came upon sisters Sunita and Sangeeta Yadav, 23 and 22, respectively, who already had a bachelor’s in education but were studying art so they could blend the two and become teachers.
This astounded me: Shouldn’t a liberal arts background at least instil the ability to input, analyse and produce— the very basics of a job? Especially given the alleged teacher “crunch”.
But another crisis looms—in confidence and comprehension. When I asked Sunita what she was studying, she looked at me blankly.
“Didn’t you say you were taking an art course?” I reminded.
“I don’t consider that studying,” she said. “That’s training.”
Perhaps some of the breakdown was due to my sorry Hindi and her weak English, but the disconnect foreshadows a part of what will be the government’s challenge: to ensure that skills and knowledge go hand in hand, that citizens understand one is nothing without the other.
If that does not happen, sheltered students will continue to look to the same place for employment coveted by their parents and grandparents— the government. Young women, particularly, will seek escape in another institution—marriage.
As we spoke, Chaudhuri was cutting articles out of the newspaper. She posts them on bulletin boards around the simple campus in the hope that students will stop and realize there is a world beyond them and their skill. Even as she does, she concedes that is hardly the role of vocational schools.
“It sounds strange, but we need to not think globally, but locally,” agreed vice-principal A.M. Banerji.
Isn’t it possible to do both? With its massive funding of education and vocational training, the government’s heart and purse appear to be in the right place. But massive poverty and underemployment—against the backdrop of a private sector begging for qualified applicants—force us to first revise the calculus of how we learn, what we learn and why we learn it.
After my day at the polytechnic, I headed for the labour conference, listening to a panel on how other countries have built and repaired their workforces. Envy filled me as slide after slide showed alliances among schools, the private sector and the government. The success stories offered training early, often and repeatedly. In Korea, a sound vocational policy helped per capita income double decade to decade.
Here, the 11th Plan’s spending must inspire Indians to embrace more than degrees or skills—but true lifelong learning.
(Your comments are welcome at widerangle@livemint.com)

words to live and love by

http://www.livemint.com/Articles/2008/02/14225946/Words-to-live-and-love-by.html

Dear husbands,
If you came here looking for a repeat of last year’s Valentine’s Day letter that gushed over the liberated man’s role in helping women succeed, Wider Angle is sorry to disappoint. But the results of a recent Hindustan Times survey of 500 middle-class men between the ages of 20 and 45 from six large cities have not left us feeling quite so loving — or even loved. Around 60% of those surveyed say they prefer stay-at-home wives. Only 24% of respondents said that their ideal woman should be “independent, yet a good homemaker”.
No, no, you say, that’s not me. And as proof, you might count yourself among the Indians who spent a record Rs3,000 crore on gifts yesterday. Perhaps in a moment of desperation, you even typed the phrase “what women want” into a search engine.
Here’s a thought — it’s not luxury watches or chocolates, not a fancy dinner, or even countless roses. In fact, maybe you should have been doing the letter-writing this year… Something like:
Dear wives,
Well, you know we’ve never been quite as good with emotions as you but, every now and then, we suppose we should at least try.
Valentine’s Day is filled with this four-letter word: love. And we certainly do love you. But we also wanted to take this opportunity to tell you that we cherish you, appreciate you, respect and honour you.
Whether you work, or stay home, or manage some super combo of both, we are amazed at how you manage to squeeze so many hours, chores and meetings into one day. That really puts us to shame.
There’s a lot more that makes us ashamed. That same Hindustan Times survey found that four out of five of us have made lewd comments to women. (The Hindustan Times is published by HT Media Ltd, also the publisher of Mint.) Nearly half of us surveyed felt women at a pub are “asking for trouble”.
We recognize that we have played a role in perpetuating the double standard that is making India’s streets unsafe for women. Troubling, dangerous cases of sexual harassment are euphemistically called “eve-teasing”. Somehow, we get away with many more “passes” than we should.
We are sorry. We are sorry for the results of these actions making life more difficult for you, whether it’s at a nightclub, or on your commute to work. Even as we judge and mistreat members of the opposite sex, we realize they are someone else’s wives, mothers and sisters.
Not as an excuse, but by way of explanation, many of us grew up in households where we were the centre of attention. Our mothers waited till our fathers ate, then us, before imbibing the remaining morsels. They made sure our needs were put before theirs, and so we grew up with this tendency to dismiss what women do, say, want.
Our mothers made sure our needs were put before theirs. So we grew up with this tendency to dismiss women
Despite such an upbringing, you women somehow manage to look the other way and take us in. In many cases, you have softened us, wakened us, bettered us. For that, we — and society — should be grateful.
In recognition, we are trying very hard to change. Admittedly, we’re not there as much as we should be, as involved in the rhythms of the household, from the mundane tasks such as remembering to order another gas cylinder to the more important child rearing. We understand that our lapses to you represent not mere forgetfulness, but a return to that regressive behaviour that doesn’t have a place in the new India we all are working so hard to create.
Sometimes, we wonder if you have given up on us. We ask you to hang on and hang in. Valentine’s Day seems such a frivolous continuation of typical gender roles: woman longs, man provides. The reality is that you Indian women have played a role of providing and sacrificing for centuries, modifying self as required by shifting mores and changing times.
We concede it is we men who have not been able to keep pace.
“India is not that advanced when it comes to the way many men treat women. Men here are not used to listening to women. That’s beginning to change, but it’s going to take a lot of time,” Barkha Singh, chief of the Delhi Commission for Women, which is under the social welfare ministry, was quoted as saying in a recent story by Cox News Service on the sorry treatment of women in India.
So the flowers, the chocolates, the gifts are mere things, we recognize. Actions are really what matter, you have shown us.
We are trying to change. But because we recognize some of our errors are deep-seated and institutional, perhaps it would be more meaningful if we pledged today to raise our sons and daughters as truly equal beings.
Blurred, liberalized gender roles in the next generation of Indians? Now that would be a real gift.
Your comments are welcome at widerangle@livemint.com

Does work make you sick?

wider angle

Besides colds, coughs and fevers, another queasy state is making the rounds this week: the dilemma of whether or not to call in sick.
It’s a tricky thing, this sick leave concept. It ranks up there with the un-wired holiday: no laptop, no mobile, no BlackBerry.
Yeah, right. Who’s taken one of those lately?
So on the one hand, there’s your health. Your resistance has been shot by too many meals out, too much travel, long hours at the office, little sleep and lots of exposure to unsavoury elements that breed infection. (As you read this, New Delhi’s mercury has been inching ever closer to zero.)
And then…there’s your job. In this Indian economy marked by harried, hurried, haphazard growth, your presence will not only be missed, but the absence dissected and scrutinized. You are necessary and instrumental to the organization’s growth. Your scheduled presentation is key to the company’s survival. Your employer, if successful, could emerge an industry leader and mark India’s entry to the big leagues.
Suddenly, your pesky cough stands in the way of the nation’s emergence as a global superpower.
Even workers who claim to toil for the most lenient and family-friendly of employers say they feel sheepish calling in sick because their supervisors make them feel bad about it: “Sometimes they do go overboard in criticizing you, even if you’re genuinely unwell, because they are understaffed,” said one lawyer in Mumbai who requested anonymity in exchange for honesty. “Fair enough, but there are many days where you sit around doing nothing waiting for the clock to strike 7.”
But who, I wonder, is sitting around doing nothing these days? If that’s the case, perhaps the persistent requests for sick days from the same employees over and over are a sign of something else. Just what is it about their occasional sniffle that makes them call in sick? This is supposed to be the most exciting economy on the planet—aren’t workers so eager to wake up every morning and help build a new India?
Human resources consultant Jyotika Dhawan says organizations noting a lot of sick time being exhausted need to take a close look at why: “Many employees ‘take a sickie’ because their morale is low and they just don’t like or can’t do their work,” said the director of Helix-HR in New Delhi. “When a productive employee starts turning in mediocre work…lateness, leaving on the dot, leaving work early, prolonged breaks and increasing absences are the most common actions of burned-out employees.”
In this case, the younger age and relative immaturity of the Indian workforce can be a contributing factor to the lack of motivation. After all, managers here might not have yet mastered the art of inspiring people to come to work day in and day out…
“Indians,” one American chief executive of a software company pronounced to me recently, “get more tummy aches than any other nation. Why do they call out sick so much?”
There’re legitimate reasons, of course. Poor hygiene conditions and unsafe water come to mind. (Note to office managers: If you want to keep your staff healthy, maybe it’s time to revisit the stream of brown stuff coming out of the water cooler.)
Some managers I spoke with cite employees who call in sick, but try to win brownie points by checking the occasional email. Employees, of course, have their right to sick leave, but their half-hearted attempts to work might result in more harm than good; the same can be said for those heroes who try to come in and sniffle their way through client meetings—and infect the rest of us, perpetuating the cycle.
Taking a sick day also helps deepen the divide between those ever-warring factions at work: the haves and have-nots. Not in terms of money, but kids and spouses, of course.
“Sick leave is actually supposed to be taken for being ill themselves,” observed Vipul Bondal, who works in public relations. “Relatives/spouse/kids being unwell does not count as a reason.”
Counterpoint: “Most people do call in to say that they themselves are ‘sick’ because it is deemed unmanly (and hence, unprofessional) to stay away from work to look after your sick child/spouse,” says Suchismita Bhaumik, a working mother in Mumbai.
Honesty, they say, is the best policy—but seems rarely followed when it comes to illness; how else to explain the sudden spurt in time off requested towards the end of the year at companies where such leave doesn’t roll over.
One exception came in this gem forwarded to me: an employee’s text message to his team leader. “I’m not coming in to office today because I’m not well. Please don’t call me as I will be attending my sister-in-law’s wedding.”
Now that kind of honesty, I am sure, made his manager sick.

Cover thy neighbour's pay

So let’s say you’re holding the lofty title of deputy senior associate manager and she’s a deputy senior associate manager. She’s in her early 30s. You’re in your early 30s. You oversee four people. She oversees four people. She went to one campus of the Indian Institutes of Management. You went to another.
Should the salaries be the same or different?
In these times of attrition, salary hikes and fast promotions, the answer is not so clear. Chances are, the last person to be hired is making quite a bit more; such is the nature and reality of pay increases in a candidates’ market.
While compensation has completely changed, one thing sadly hasn’t: People at work still talk about how much they make. So, salary looms like the big elephant in the office that everyone knows about and discusses secretly among themselves. Not exactly conducive to creating a harmonious work environment.
Workers themselves are torn on just what is fair. Consider one graphic designer in Mumbai who recently came to discover that someone with his same title—but many years senior —earns about the same.
“He is about twice more experienced than me in terms of the number of years he’s put in,” he said. “I have come to know that his salary and mine are not very different.”
Was he proud of being at the top of his industry’s game? Not really, he said, sounding rather depressed. He felt like he didn’t have a whole lot to look forward to if he stayed on in the company.
“Large companies do underpay people, which is not fair,” he said. “That’s the reason people never wait for increments and prefer to move on for better ‘jumps’.”
Indeed, even as I think young workers are doing themselves the greatest of career disservices as they jump from job to job, a look at the disparities in salary yields the fact that they often have little choice. In some ways, that’s also why the culture of discussing numbers—in addition to the one upmanship rampant in corporate India—persists.
Is equal compensation for equal work possible? No, because there’s no such thing as equal work.
In the words of one manager, “Communism and socialist view on salary does not work in India. Even employees…will want their ‘fair’ share more than others in their peer group.”
Salary is a complicated formula, or perhaps not a formula at all. Managers varied when I asked how they arrived at salaries, but cited one common parameter—what someone was earning before. And even as the guy with the most tenure at a company becomes team leader first, he’s often viewed with a certain scepticism, as though he remains because no other options exist.
“Whenever you have to go out and hire individuals, you end up providing a 30-40% increase to make the move competitive. Many individuals, irrespective of proficiency, end up landing at the higher end of the compensation band,” said Sandeep Chaudhary, a business consulting leader at Hewitt in Mumbai.
His solution is actually not to throw money at good people but reward them with perks and responsibility. “What organizations don’t do a great job of is communicating rewards. It is the least understood topic by business managers today,” he said.
The worst offenders, the managers I spoke to largely agreed, are human resources managers who gossip about the different compensation bands among employees. To combat this, employers should drive home the negative impact this can have on a workplace, even as they assure employees transparency in the areas it can be offered—opportunities, training, job postings and other incentives.
“People do compare and share notes on their packages. I am sickened by it as an employer, but employees relish in it. Smart ones know it hurts them more in the long run. Show-offs don’t last long,” said Prashanth V. Boccasam, the head of Pune-based Approva Corp., a firm that makes auditing software.
The truth is that no two workers are created the same—whether they make widgets or make software. As India becomes a major player in the global economy, two things must happen to ensure our treatment of our own workers is just. First, they need to be paid fairly to begin with. That means looking at the company’s bottom line and ensuring there’s some justifiable division of wealth, and that per employee spending remains higher than peer firms—and salary represents one part of that spending. More importantly, workers need to be given an incentive to stay beyond money, even as they understand why they earn what they do. Underperformers are not underpaid.
Offer fair salaries, responsibility and opportunities to shine—and the work ethic should rise proportionately. The stellar output alone should silence those who complain.

A people's painful progress

http://www.livemint.com/Articles/2008/01/17223947/A-people8217s-painful-progr.html

Wider Angle

On the day The People’s Car made headlines across the world, I bumped along the dirt road leading to my parents’ house in Guwahati in a rented precursor, the Tata Indica. I passed the home of a neighbour—a man hired by banks to seize and resell cars when owners cannot keep up with payments—and noted the number of vehicles parked in his yard had increased, as it does every time I visit.
With cups of tea and coconut sweets, my family and I gathered around the television to watch the coverage of the New Delhi Auto Expo on NE TV, a north-eastern television channel. Far from the detached, sophisticated airs of the major metros, the newscaster marvelled as she rendered the story. Even my illiterate paternal grandmother seemed to recognize that she had witnessed yet another historic moment in her 85 years divided between rural and urban India.
Because my connectivity tends to be limited in these parts, I missed the extensive coverage of Tata’s hyped Rs1 lakh Nano in the Western press. Upon my return to New Delhi, my inbox burst with the complete opposite of the euphoric atmosphere I had just experienced:
“It Costs Just $2,500. It’s Cute as a Bug. And It Could Mean Global Disaster.” That was a headline from an opinion piece in The Washington Post.
An excerpt from The Associated Press: “Tata Nano will lead to possibly millions more cars hitting already clogged Indian roads, adding to mounting air and noise pollution problems.”
A headline from The New York Times: “Indians Hit the Road Amid Elephants.” That one struck home as my family once owned four elephants, contracted to haul timber and scrap. When the last one died, my uncle took the insurance money and bought a city bus. Steady as they were, elephants had no role in the urban economy my rural relatives sought to enter.
Thus, in many ways, the North-East was the perfect place to be in the days that the world arrogantly fretted over how a cheap car might ruin everyone else’s happiness. As the Auto Expo unfolded in New Delhi, Guwahati was plastered with billboards advertising another auto fair to be held next month.
According to the R.K. Swamy BBDO Guide to Urban Markets, based on 2004 data, Assam is ranked third in car ownership per capita; Kerala holds the top spot, followed by Gujarat. Meanwhile, the nearby Nagaland capital of Kohima boasts more cars per person than any other city of India.
There are multiple, complicated reasons for these statistics, from tax breaks to ready loans to militants and civil servants flush with black money. But what has struck me in a half-dozen visits home over the last three years is that progress is actually under way, partly triggered by all the cars: wider roads, new flyovers, national highways. To compete, bus transport actually has gotten better and connects more far-flung places. As I have written before, much remains to be done and road conditions in the rural North-East remain abysmal and crumble under floods. But the frantic pace of development reflects the government’s recognition that things could no longer continue the way they were —just as my family realized when they traded contracting elephants for a bus.
It is an example worth offering to the sceptics who suddenly purport to care about the environment or our congested roadways (we also might want to add that we have seven or eight cars per 1,000 people, while the US has more than 400).
“This is a democracy,” Vishnu Mathur, executive director of the Automotive Component Manufacturing Association of India, told me. “Infrastructure responds to demand.”
India shines in crisis. The global coverage and perceptions of the new Tata Nano underscore how illogical that reality can sometimes seen
Translation: In crisis, India shines. To Westerners, including my American-born and –raised self, such is a perplexing and illogical turn of events. And the coverage and perceptions of the Tata Nano underscore this quandary: green or dream, to celebrate or condemn?
As I read the foreign reports this week, I recalled the opening lines of an essay in Time magazine last year: “…my rental car had to halt behind a long line of trucks and buses belching diesel fumes into the warm night air. The cause of the holdup: an army truck lying mangled in a roadside ditch, another victim, said one of the hundreds of onlookers, of the treacherous narrow and winding roads… The scene was chaotic. …the truth is that much of the new India is still like the old.”
He happened to be describing a road in Guwahati. The correspondent, just on the job for seven months, could be forgiven for not knowing how far the city has actually come.
But it is incumbent on us who know to occasionally remind the world of the distance we have travelled. For the Tata Nano has the potential to drive us further down the path of progress and allow more Indians to come along for the ride—an admittedly imperfect and rocky journey but one moving forward nonetheless.
Your comments are welcome at widerangle@livemint.com

On the day The People’s Car made headlines across the world, I bumped along the dirt road leading to my parents’ house in Guwahati in a rented precursor, the Tata Indica. I passed the home of a neighbour—a man hired by banks to seize and resell cars when owners cannot keep up with payments—and noted the number of vehicles parked in his yard had increased, as it does every time I visit.
With cups of tea and coconut sweets, my family and I gathered around the television to watch the coverage of the New Delhi Auto Expo on NE TV, a north-eastern television channel. Far from the detached, sophisticated airs of the major metros, the newscaster marvelled as she rendered the story. Even my illiterate paternal grandmother seemed to recognize that she had witnessed yet another historic moment in her 85 years divided between rural and urban India.
Because my connectivity tends to be limited in these parts, I missed the extensive coverage of Tata’s hyped Rs1 lakh Nano in the Western press. Upon my return to New Delhi, my inbox burst with the complete opposite of the euphoric atmosphere I had just experienced:
“It Costs Just $2,500. It’s Cute as a Bug. And It Could Mean Global Disaster.” That was a headline from an opinion piece in The Washington Post.
An excerpt from The Associated Press: “Tata Nano will lead to possibly millions more cars hitting already clogged Indian roads, adding to mounting air and noise pollution problems.”
A headline from The New York Times: “Indians Hit the Road Amid Elephants.” That one struck home as my family once owned four elephants, contracted to haul timber and scrap. When the last one died, my uncle took the insurance money and bought a city bus. Steady as they were, elephants had no role in the urban economy my rural relatives sought to enter.
Thus, in many ways, the North-East was the perfect place to be in the days that the world arrogantly fretted over how a cheap car might ruin everyone else’s happiness. As the Auto Expo unfolded in New Delhi, Guwahati was plastered with billboards advertising another auto fair to be held next month.
According to the R.K. Swamy BBDO Guide to Urban Markets, based on 2004 data, Assam is ranked third in car ownership per capita; Kerala holds the top spot, followed by Gujarat. Meanwhile, the nearby Nagaland capital of Kohima boasts more cars per person than any other city of India.
There are multiple, complicated reasons for these statistics, from tax breaks to ready loans to militants and civil servants flush with black money. But what has struck me in a half-dozen visits home over the last three years is that progress is actually under way, partly triggered by all the cars: wider roads, new flyovers, national highways. To compete, bus transport actually has gotten better and connects more far-flung places. As I have written before, much remains to be done and road conditions in the rural North-East remain abysmal and crumble under floods. But the frantic pace of development reflects the government’s recognition that things could no longer continue the way they were —just as my family realized when they traded contracting elephants for a bus.
It is an example worth offering to the sceptics who suddenly purport to care about the environment or our congested roadways (we also might want to add that we have seven or eight cars per 1,000 people, while the US has more than 400).
“This is a democracy,” Vishnu Mathur, executive director of the Automotive Component Manufacturing Association of India, told me. “Infrastructure responds to demand.”
India shines in crisis. The global coverage and perceptions of the new Tata Nano underscore how illogical that reality can sometimes seen
Translation: In crisis, India shines. To Westerners, including my American-born and –raised self, such is a perplexing and illogical turn of events. And the coverage and perceptions of the Tata Nano underscore this quandary: green or dream, to celebrate or condemn?
As I read the foreign reports this week, I recalled the opening lines of an essay in Time magazine last year: “…my rental car had to halt behind a long line of trucks and buses belching diesel fumes into the warm night air. The cause of the holdup: an army truck lying mangled in a roadside ditch, another victim, said one of the hundreds of onlookers, of the treacherous narrow and winding roads… The scene was chaotic. …the truth is that much of the new India is still like the old.”
He happened to be describing a road in Guwahati. The correspondent, just on the job for seven months, could be forgiven for not knowing how far the city has actually come.
But it is incumbent on us who know to occasionally remind the world of the distance we have travelled. For the Tata Nano has the potential to drive us further down the path of progress and allow more Indians to come along for the ride—an admittedly imperfect and rocky journey but one moving forward nonetheless.
Your comments are welcome at widerangle@livemint.com

No longer kissing cousins

Wider Angle | S.Mitra Kalita

http://www.livemint.com/Articles/2008/01/10231952/No-longer-kissing-cousins.html

We four NRIs (non-resident Indians) sat around the table, dipping pita into hummus, sipping sangria, talking Hillary Clinton vs Barack Obama.
Once our visitors grew comfortable, their real views tumbled out: “Everyone here just wants to hustle you,” said one woman in town for business.
“Nobody in this country wants to do anything for the sheer love of it,” said another, here to organize a music festival, unable to find free performers.
“Well, not really,” I retorted. “You can’t blame people for wanting to make their share if you’re coming in to profit off their labour.”
My husband nudged me. I shut up. The conversation topic changed.
That night, in the safety and honesty of bed, I said what I really meant: “NRIs can be so annoying. All they do is complain about India. Why do they even come?”
The obviously hypocritical question (my family and I moved here last year after lifetimes in the US) remained with me, especially this week as the biggest NRI jamboree unfolded yet again in New Delhi, and thousands of the diaspora were heralded for doing India proud. In panel discussion after panel discussion, delegates attempted a delicate balancing act between decrying the state of Indian poverty, bureaucracy, infrastructure and celebrating Indian culture, values, heritage.
This was my second Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, as the event is known. The first time I attended, in 2004, I was promoting a book I had just written on Indian immigration to the US. Back then, I was an NRI in every definition of the acronym: Non-Resident Indian, Not Really Indian, Non Reliable Indian, Know It All. Pictures of me ran on the front pages of Indian newspapers. I made some appearances on television. When I headed to my parents’ native Assam a few days later, I again was garlanded and applauded.
Between then and now, so much has changed—namely me and India’s attitudes towards people like me.
In a satirical essay in Outlook magazine last month, historian and writer Ramachandra Guha labelled winter the season of the “NRI puja”. He wrote, “When these family NRIs appear, we, mere permanent residents, are obliged to pay homage, altering our own lives and work schedules to do so. It is striking how naturally we slip into the role of worshippers; they, as naturally, into the role of the worshipped.”
Even The Patna Daily has gotten in on the NRI bashing: “Now, if you get a tourist visa and come to America for four months, you are an NRI. If you went to Singapore on a business trip, you immediately acquire the status of an NRI. Oh yeah, let’s not forget about your trip to Nepal.”
An excerpt from a website offering advice to someone about to move to India: “As long as you’re open and don’t show a lot of that ‘Indo-American’ attitude (trust me, a lot of NRIs do it and its [sic] annoying enough to make anyone scream)…”
This time at the conference I was thankfully barely recognized. Now feeling quite at home in India, I looked around and wondered if those gathered really pondered free trade agreements and the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act. (Note to next year’s organizers, most of this crowd worries more about teaching their children Bharatanatyam or setting up temples that can rival Akshardham and Tirupati.)
As the man at the dais began his talk on infrastructure with the words, “We became an independent nation in 1947,” I rolled my eyes and prepared to leave. But first, I turned to the random guy sitting next to me:
“Why did you come here?”
“This is my first time in India,” Dhurmanund Gobin said, smiling. “I am from Mauritius.”
He told me he had just turned 58 that day and pulled out his national identity card to prove it. An identity that showed him belonging elsewhere.
“Our forefathers were very poor people but they worked hard so we could get an education. And they never let us forget India. …When I landed here,” he said, “I felt like I am in my true land.”
I thought of the international arrivals terminal at the airport, especially between the 10pm and 2am. Each time, the crowds gathered to greet NRIs feels thinner and thinner. But the joy on the faces of the greeted and the greeters hasn’t changed much.
A man like Gobind, of course, wouldn’t have family waiting for him; he doesn’t know exactly where in Bihar his grandfather left. And so he showed up to this conference, hoping to belong as he heard how he too could invest in roads and bridges.
His search for identity is one I imagine many global Indians—here, there, everywhere and nowhere—share. This recent tide of NRI bashing feels like an overdue, inevitable threshold. On the other side, we might shed the useless labels and accept and embrace our global, fluid, confused identities. That would be worth celebrating.

No longer kissing cousins

Wider Angle | S.Mitra Kalita

http://www.livemint.com/Articles/2008/01/10231952/No-longer-kissing-cousins.html

Stop burping. Only disclose your salary to your mother. Don’t tell your colleagues they are fat, dark or have bad skin.
Finally, a book has crossed my desk —issued by a company, no less—that is actually blunt, useful and relevant, even necessary, for the modern Indian workplace.
In fact, the long list on page 33 of InCorporate: Communication etiquette for today’s workplace makes abundantly clear why such rules are needed. In a section devoted to the art of making small talk, the book advises Indians which topics to avoid.
Consider the banned: politics and religion, personal health problems or misfortune; stories and jokes of questionable taste; remarks about ethnic, racial or gender groups; gossip and hearsay; controversial issues such as abortion; intimate details about yourself or others; one’s income or the price of personal things.
If your family is anything like mine, we breeze through most of those subjects by morning tea.
And so this 103-page guide, published by Standard Chartered’s business processing unit Scope International Pvt. Ltd, offers insight into why assimilation can be so tough for new entrants to the workforce.
Over the last year, we officially became a nation obsessed with “soft skills”. Company after company decries the sorry state of the Indian education system, as well as the lack of exposure of new hires from lower-rung institutes and second-tier towns. The nature of networking and interaction —in and out of the office, the personal becoming professional—is changing rapidly. The chap who doesn’t remember which knife butters his bread warrants forgiveness—and instruction.
Scope International released the book just about one year ago, a part of its desire to give new hires “a strong foundation for stepping into the demanding lanes of corporate life,” writes Scope chief executive Sreeram Iyer in his introduction.
Noteworthy is that little of the book dwells on Scope’s internal ethos or systems. These days, far too many human resources managers seem stuck in the yesteryear of training for lifelong service to one employer or orientations about the mundane: Please download all 56 expense forms off our intranet. The canteen serves vegetarian cuisine on Tuesdays. All leave requests must be cc-ed to the new department of authorized absences.
So, Scope’s straight talk is refreshing. “…be a ‘solution provider’ rather than a ‘reason-giver’,” it advises. Do not instantly hit reply all on emails. Avoid composing emails when emotional or angry. Do not blow noses into cloth napkins; they are not handkerchiefs.
The cellphone etiquette section ought to be adopted by every office and posted as mission statement: Turn phones off during meetings. Avoid long songs as ring tones. (My addendum: Take the device with you as you roam the office or the bathroom.)
Scope spokesperson Shashi Ravichandran notes a difference among workers. “Soft skills are one such area which builds their capability and confidence and grooms potential managers and leaders,” she said. “It helps their development by enabling them to communicate effectively and adapt to multi-cultural landscapes.”
And yet as I came to certain commandments, such as “Thou shalt not eat with thy fingers” or “Thou shall respect two feet of personal space,” I began to wonder if what is becoming accepted as workplace etiquette is really a misnomer for Western etiquette.
What prevents us from dipping into the fish curry or mutton biryani with our hands because, practically speaking, that really is the best way to debone, eat and enjoy? And is it really rude to slip into mother tongues when the urge strikes? Can we see the silver lining in some elements of our unique Indian behaviours; bluntness as a plus point, perhaps? 
The answer is ultimately dictated not by cultural supremacy but business. If a client is Western, then leave the Tamil behind and just bring on circuitous conversations about the weather. But if a client is Indian, is there a need to lose ourselves?
Ravichandran assured me Scope doesn’t want “change in our personal traits which make us stand apart as individuals, but change in our style of communication and an international approach to work practices.”
If 2007 wound down with a rebuffed Ratan Tata demanding respect and an apology from Orient-Express (with a name like that, sensitivity seems the last thing to expect), let this year begin as the one where office integration works both ways, or perhaps several. It’s not a bad idea for educational institutes to hand out new rules for the workplace with diplomas, and for companies to do so along with offer letters—with the caveat that exceptions must exist in a world trying to understand India as much as the reverse.
But East or West, the verdict on Kajra Re as ring tone is clear. It is globally accepted...as annoying.
Your comments are welcome at widerangle@livemint.com