Why am I here?

So you asked and I answered. Why am I here?

There are many reasons, some small and some big. Some came before and some later. As in before I started the move and after I started settling in. That was a long process by the way. I started coming here for three months at a time back in 2005. I had my team here working on the technology I was developing. I found that the market looked promising here too and so, slowly but surely, “I Bangalored myself”.

So, I came because of my business. Veni, Vidi… the Vici is yet to happen. I saw a country that was changing rapidly – it was so exciting! See my first post to get an idea of what I was thinking then. Naturally, doing business here seemed attractive as well – the opportunities were boundless.

At the same time, I saw that I was needed here. Both my parents were getting old and couldn’t take care of themselves. My brother-in-law was very helpful, but he himself was suffering from Leukemia (which by the way, looks like it is in remission, Yaay!). It just made sense for the family to be here.

After the family came and I watched my kids interact with other kids here, I realized something significant that made me realize it was worth staying on. In fact, I had some inklings of it before they came, but the full impact hit me when I watched them playing (particularly soccer) with other kids. I realized that kids here are significantly more aggressive than kids in America. And so are their parents.

People in America are very nice – to a fault, unfortunately. There is little aggression on display. This is something that needs a deeper analysis someday, but in passing I feel that the state has become too powerful in America and also as women have become more powerful, men have become less aggressive. The latter is mostly a Good Thing of course, but the former is a Very Bad Thing. Irregardless (as we ungrammatically say in Wisconsin), I thought it would be a Very Good Thing for my kids to learn to be more aggressive. But what about me? Yes, I needed to be more aggressive as well and I am learning from those around me. A good lesson to learn from the country of Gandhi? Yes, but then India abounds with such dichotomies.

By the way, this aggression will have a significant impact on the world soon. Indians are going all over the world, and aggressively demanding (and getting) their share of the pie. This too deserves and article by itself, but let me just say this. You will see the Indianization of the world I your lifetime.

Then of course, I wanted my kids to experience this life. I wanted them to see a whole new reality. I hope it will give them a depth that they will need in the world to come. No, I am not talking about culture or religion (they already knew more about our culture and religion than most kids in India their age – but again that is another discussion). And it is not just one thing like the aggressiveness I discussed above. In Wisconsin, in the year before they came, the most horrific thing that had happened in our experience was this. Twice in our Kids League Soccer games, the goalpost had fallen. Luckily no one was injured! By god, if a kid had been injured, it would have been a lawsuit, or (because some parents would have been too “nice" to sue) at least a huge scandal.

The point is this – kids there (and adults too) live a too-protected and too-sheltered life. There is an email going around the net that exemplifies what I am talking about. But let me elaborate here. As I was writing this, it struck me that in two decades, I don’t remember seeing barbed wire anywhere in Wisconsin! Here there are plenty of hazards, and my children are learning to live with that. They still wear seatbelts in the car, but only if they are in the front seat. They cross the road on their own – that is a life-threatening experience at every step. We go places where there are no railings – I am watchful, but I don’t immediately call the police (They would probably not come – they would be busy rolling on the floor laughing at me!). The kids bike to their Hindi tuitions – sometimes without a helmet and I am OK with that. There is probably lead in the paint and asbestos all over, but I am learning not to worry….

Times of India (and me) on “Disenchanted NRIs”

Read an interesting article today that validates a lot of what we have been saying about India. This is an article in the Times of India called “Home Truths” by Amrita Singh. The byline says “For these disenchanted NRIs, India wasn’t what they thought it to be”. Apart from the usual misuse of the work NRI, and a few other minor points, the article is dead on. Let me outline the issues discussed there and add a few:

1. Lack of Work Culture: Most Indians don’t have any. Yes, there is that that tiny subset of Indians who do have it - they are fabulously successful people who compete on the global stage and even on that stage they are the best. I am sure you can name quite a few such people and perhaps you are one of them. But those are the exceptions. You only have to look around you in any office setting to see people doing “jack” almost all of the time. In Marathi we even have a name for it -it's called "Patya Takne". There are many reasons for this – not the least of which is our colonial heritage, but I’ll save that analysis for another blog, another time.

2. No respect for time: Let me add, no respect for others or their time. As Ms. Kuppam, a transplant from America says in the article “…nobody shows up on time, be it maids, drivers, vendors or contractors.” And I can add, colleagues, people you do business with or socialize with (not for long in my case). People will show up literally hours late and they don’t even apologize! Apparently it is expected if you are an important person. Bleaah!

3. A bias against people who have had global experience: Need I say more? Yes, everything bad is American, everything good is Indian – might well be the theme song of some people I meet. In fact, the only good things in America apparently are the Indians who have made it big, like Vinod Khosla or Indra Nooyi. It’s okay to be proud of India and its many achievements. But don’t confuse other Indians’ success with your own.

4. A culture of dependence: I have already talked about this in a previous blog – but you just cannot do without some servants. You can have all the appliances you want, but they might not work (and it takes weeks, sometimes months to get warranty service), or there might not be any electricity, or someone has to come visit (unannounced of course) or any number of things…. And as I wrote earlier, if I did not have a driver, my blood pressure would 900/800 or I would be in jail for killing people on the street.

5. Poor education: This deserves a whole book by itself, but teaching is still continued in the best schools the way it was when I went to school – rote learning, abuse thinly disguised as discipline, no teaching material beyond some very poor textbooks and on and on. And the bad schools (especially the new ones), the less said the better.

Now let me add a few of my own.

6. Corruption and greed: This is ruining the very fabric of society here and people here are too passive, too scared or too corrupt already to change anything. Again, this needs more space but maybe I’ll get into it in an upcoming blog.

7. Arrogance: Like I said, nobody here wants to hear any criticism, whether of themselves or of India or anything Indian. They think things here couldn’t be better. You want proof? I’ll bet you most Indians who read this will leave a lot of hateful comments on this blog.

8. No infrastructure: Last month we had 40 hour power cuts here. You head it right – 40 hours during the week, typically at the busiest times (since that’s when the load is highest) there is no power. The roads are a joke, traffic is a complete mess, and there is no public transportation. Most of it is because of corrupt politicians who are lining their pockets (see 6 above) and a passive population who won’t throw them out.

Well there is more, and I am exhausted by the negativity of what I wrote, but I guess it must be said.

Next time I will bring you something positive. Really, I promise.

Restart!

It has been a while since I blogged on any of my blogs. I have been just to busy, putting out version 1.0 of my software, settling the family, and reconnecting with my parents, etc. etc.

But, I think the real reason I have not written is because anything I would write would be colored by a lot of negative emotion. And I don’t believe in negative emotion – it debilitates you and it is best to clean such things out of your system. If something does not make you happy, or does not inspire you or does not excite you, it should not be part of your life! Of course, I am not such a simpleton to believe that one can live in a permanent state of myopic bliss when things around you are going to hell. One has to pay attention to the negatives and then fix them … or move on.

Which brings us back to the negative emotions I just talked about. India is frustrating. There is no sugar coated way I can say that. For someone who has lived 23 years in the US of A it is mind-bogglingly frustrating. It starts when I wake up. In Milwaukee, one of the best parts of my day was a hot-shower in the morning – it wakes me up and energizes me. In Milwaukee, I would step into the shower and turn the faucets on – Ah Nirvana! In India, I fight the faucets for the first 5 minutes (they are loose and the hot and cold streams are unbalanced), getting alternately scalded and frozen. By the time I am all soaped up, the stupid, lousy 3 gallon hot water “geyser” tank is all done. I have to finish up in cold water. I detest cold showers, except in extremely hot weather (which mercifully is only a couple of months here in Pune). Anyway, by the time I am done cursing the “geyser” and longing for the 100 gallon hot water heater in our basement in Milwaukee, I have already got a negative start to the day.

Then there are all the challenges of servants not showing up – including the maid who does the dishes and the driver. We have tried to keep the servant retinue to a minimum, but some are, well, just necessary. If I did not have a driver for example, I would probably have committed multiple homicides every mile. The few times I have driven here I wanted to litter the roads with the corpses of all those maniacal drivers who break every traffic law there is to break and then some! And …. Aaaaaaarrrrggggghhhhhh!

Well you get the picture – I was going to write a nice positive essay to restart my blogging, but it devolved pretty fast there didn’t it? We are only at about 9am and I am contemplating mass murder.

Anyway, like I said in my introduction, this country will frustrate you and challenge and excite you, but never bore you…

I promise I will try to be calmer in my future posts, but be prepared for some criticisms of India and Indian culture. If you can’t handle it, please don’t revisit this blog. And please no flaming – I can’t stand fanatics who can’t take criticism. Of course you will miss all the positive things I say too (and perhaps even some insights).

“A life that is not examined is not worth living” - Socrates