Where does human behaviour figure in our arguments????

So here's an interesting read in the newspaper... the author of the article moans about the apparent lack of people going in for civil engineering or mechanical engineering which are so important for building infrastructure... his viewpoint, there are just 12000 civil engineers being churned out evey year in Indian while we require around 70000 of them. He then goes on to offer a simplistic solution: build more engineering colleges to teach civil engineering... the logic being that more seats will guarantee more engineers... however i believe the author has forgotten to consider a very important factior here... that of human behaviour... and more specifically that of Indian behaviour...

The current state of the country is not a balanced one... There are three layers to it.. 1) the very rich business class... these thrive on family owned businesses which are still allowing them to live in great luxury. This also consists of the politicians, IAS, IPS, actors, sportspersons etc... 2)The upper middle class.. Somehow in India the upper middle class has always been the ones who studied well and got into services. Since time unknown their biggest strength has been their knowledge. .Like mercenaries they have studied and trained and gone into fiel;ds which would benefit them the most... Be it medicine , IT , Telecomm it doesnt matter as long as it keeps this section well fed and safe with not necessarily the biggest homes or cars but nevertheless pretty decent sized cars and houses.... and then you have the remaining people... they never have enough... they do not get the basics. they are so busy worrying about the next meal that they do not have time to plan and strategise for the future. Their kids are sent to mediocre schools with mediocre teachers... the mediocrity of the teachers also stems from the fact that in India for most teacher's they are not in the profession by choice. They are in teaching beccause they couldnt fit in anywhere else. I am not saying there are no good teachers in nda/... Of course there are god teachers too but they are too few to be able to cater to such a huge population. Plus they have too gone where they can bring in the most profits in terms of hefty salaries...
So the people the good teachers are most likelyu to reach is the urbanised, upper middle class and rich sections who are the only ones who can afford them. So the middle class and poorer sections under the current scheme of affair can most definitely be wriiten off. Without access to good teachers and guidance from their parents, there is very little they can dio except live life as it comes. most of them will go into the same line of work as their parents, be it farming, wotking ad menial labourers or doing chotta-mota sarkari jobs,. That leaves us with the rich and upper middle class.
The rich obviously do not need to do much in India except inherit their parent's businesses and as is being seen nowalso their constituencies in the case of prominent politicians... Yes siree... in this largest democracy in the world, what really exists is good old monarchy, be it politics or business... So they are not going to becme the civil and mechanical engineers we are so desperately praying for...
So now the obvious answer id these engineers will come out of the highly urbanised, educated upper middle class... no matter how small their size is in comparision to the rest of the population, they can definitely spare 70000 young bright minds to take on this task...So the author's suggestion is absolutely bang on... build more colleges which focus on civil and mechanical engineering... but wait a moment what is that you say??? Indians are brilliant people, they have amazing analytical minds... they are perfect for doing the donkey work of coding complex business applications for the American and European companies for why one-fourth , even one-tenth the price of getting Amewricans and Europeans to do it... really??? Lets outsource the jobs there.... Now the kids who were going to be our heroes, see these IT, ITES and telecomm jobs as higher paying jobs, They will help you buy your dream home in half a decade max, you will also be able to buyu your dream car in a couple of years... What do the manufacturing jobs offer these same young engineers in comparision?? what would he get for actually taking up the government job of building roads and bridges across the country without resorting to corruption.... And that is the question the author should really try to answer... What will keep these young mercenaries home... Hey I don't blame them... Heck I even confess to being one of them... What will you offer me to make me stay????

There is a lot happening in India... due to the IT boom it has really caught the eye of the developped naions. they want to invest here... we need better infrastructure to make them invest here... the returns will be manifold... can the government not offer better opportunities in terms of well paying jobs which are at least on par with the jobs offered by the IT companies to encourage the children to stay... I am sure many people are interested in building the roads that we require... pretty sure a lot of young minds would want to be part of it too... but they need to be given some incentive to work for you... I wouls therefore say the solution is not as simple as building more engineering colleges... hell a lot of seats in the Maharashtra engineering colleges go empty every year due to lack of students(Ex given from experience) Why are you putting money where it is not needed? intead give the existing colleges better research projects which will capture the minds of our young engineers... give them a chance to experience what they are studying first hand.... let them suggest solutions to your engineering problem, give them decent salaries... and see how many of them actually stay back...

The biggest problem with our country is that we do not address the root cause.. we are too afraid of reality.. we live too much in the short term... here's another queston to ponder over... when the remaining Asian countries catch up with us in terms of similar proficience in English(one of our biggest advantage so far as the IT services indutry is concerned) and the Americans find it cheaper to go there.... Where are the huge force of IT engineers we built up going to go and what are they going to do??? This scares me the most... We are so much into IT services too that if these projects were pulled out of Indian IT companies and sent out to these other locations... we would be screwed big time./...It's about ti,e India stopped being a service provider ONLY but that is a different story....

The need of the hour is stop finding stop gap solutions like building more colleges and start taking a more holistic look at what we have... and what we need... We have to learn to optimise.... we carry out such wastage that..... words cannot express my anger for it..... Indian's basically lack pride in their country... they lack the spirit of oneness that exists in other countries... its the biggest example of a ship about to sink where the captain has given the oirder every man to himself... But FYI , if we abandoned this attitude we would see that we were never touched by any icceberg and there really is no hole in this ship that we cannot plug... And we need better policy makers who have the vision to look beyond their five year terms and the confidence to start work on such long term plans...

Speaking of Weddings...

"A Post Borrowed from my other blog Just Speaking... dated June 9, 2009"

And have there been weddings this year. We seem to have come of age all of a sudden. All around me I see the destruction and debris as one after the other my friends fall prey to this torturous malady. Now dont get me wrong , I am not against getting married per se... I am just wondering do these kids know what they are getting themselves into??? What does a 24 year old who has just finished college and worked for say 2 years in an industry which is as baby codling as the Indian IT industry really know of life to take a jump into HOLY MATRIMONY!!!!!! We still have buses to pick us up from and drop us at our doorsteps everyday... (and yes when these buses are not plying to our needs they do double up as excellent school buses too...) So symbolically we are still using school buses to get to our place of work and back... also our employers are so worried about our convenience(or they like to keep us soo much in their offices thus raking in the moolah aplenty) that they have tie ups with mobile service providers, share brokers, banks, insurance agents... even the income tax calculators...(ehhe... they might be called accountants) and to prevent any unnecessary trips to the local power suppliers or the post office we have couriers running the job for us... in short we do lead a charmed life.... are we really ready to leave all this comfort???(question posed to girls only not guys... guys are scumbags whose lives become better and more EXCITING after getting married... sick psycho maniacs/slave drivers....) Are you willing to trade in a life where you are doing what you have trained to do and want to do for something that you are expected to do juct by virtue of being born a female... Is this some curse that has been put on women... Id rather be a Man than live this life of quiet servitude that indian marriages always turn out to be... I for one believe its sheer stupidity... so to all those martyred a tearfuladieu... We shall remember that for a while you stood for something other than just a wife... that for some time you did soar and have dreams of your own which did not involve your husband, kids and in-laws...

My First Surgery!!!!

Now here's a classic example of how I never get fazed in the face of adversity....(People I have been through a surgery so a little apne muuh miya mithu banna is quite in order...) So I had this pain which had been irritating me since i got to Kolkata last October... and by the first week of November it grew really bad... of course I was taking meds for it so dont you ask me y i didnt do anything abt it...Anyways back to the story.... This pain was really bad... so finally on the 4th of November I decided to be sensible and go see a doctor again... and as luck would have it, the dumb cow misdiagnosed it.... (I have since taken corrective action by warning all my friends against going to her because she is a "totally incompetent nincompoop"... in the words of Captain Haddock) So it just got worse and worse till I could'nt move my legs even a cm.... that's when I decided (I am very quick at taking such decisions you see) to go see if the surgeon could bus=rst the boil for me... (all this while I was under the impression that it was as simple as that thanks to that fool who calls herself a doctor) So Shilpa and I get into a cab and gop for a ride.. a very painful ride as all the potholes of Kolkata seemed to have lined up along my route that day... anyways the surgeon takes one lok at me and goes you have to be operated right now./... Imagine my shock...so far it was just a boil... now i have to be operated!!!! anyways so we got me admitted in the hospital and Shilpa and I sorted out the hostel mess payments.... and then i dozed off happily... no food or water for 6 hrs u see... and then i woke up, saw that minal and shveta had arrived... got wheeled into the OT and it was over before I knew it...The anaesthesia might have had something to do with this factor... anyways the healing after the durgery has taken longer than the surge3ry itself.. In fact i am still getting the dressing done daily... but i am not complaining... at least nothing went toxic in my body like the surgeon said it could if i waited any longer... saved by the cat's whiskers eh!! and that my dear freinds was my first surgery.... Anyways I wouls really like to thank Sayani, Minal, and Shveta for staying with ,me in the hospital for the first 4e days... and Shilpa for forcibly pushing me to go to the hospital.... and I think they have all the fun memories of my surgery.... apparenty I said quite a few interesting things while I was under anaesthesia....Anyways things are now limping back to normalcy and hopefully this thingie will not happen to anyone i know ever again...

P.S: the highlight of the hospital trip was the dude who brought in our food singing for me and mummy...
a close second was when a dude from the class came to visit and this guy came and stood there and questioned him as to who he was, where he came from, and whether he spoke english too...
Well if nothing else at least you cant say the trip was not entertaining...

I'm Back!!!!

Hello... after a long absence on the blogging frontier.. I have decided to make an entry again... and where better to type in my blog from but the comfort of my own (Brother's) chair... Yup I am back in mumbai... and man am i loving it... there's something about this city that just fills up your senses... I seem t have a love affair with this place... No matter where i go or what I do i am happiest when i am here... it may be the fact that its really everything i ever wanted or might ever want is in Mumbai...( though I wouldnt mind checking out New York either ;))...Anyways now that I have gushed about being back home , I can move on to other things...
I Have actually taken to heart the fact that I have been depriving you poor souls of my witty commentary on life... so I have suddenly posted 3 entries in the last 1 hour... Well one of them had been written earlier but posted on another blog i maintain... So anyways... since i have been here, I have had my mom's pani puri which is the best in the world... watched three idiots in ghatkopatr....gone to bandra... love bandra.. had dinner there... fallen sick and had stomach cramos and diarrhoea after the dinner there... gone to watch avatar the next day to south mumbai... not liked it so much... 3-d effect was the only allure of the movie.... hated the story line.... come out gone to gol masjid... had biryani at jaffer Bhai's delhi darbar...Spent the sunday at home... slet mostly... hAd my atya's(Bua's) brilliat mutton liver and curry... and watched ajab prem ki ghajab kahaani which was hilarious only on account of its stupidity....
Nect on the list is a visit to my previous office... meeting my friends and mentor there... going to colba.. a visit to prithvi cafe.... juhu beach... shopping at AND... a new years partyu smwhr .... rocket singh..... bombay blues.... crawford market..
man i have got a lot to do.... chalo cu and tc...