Indian crabs...

When I was in college and my class was getting 'ready' for placement season, some 'expert's came for conducting mock interviews and some students clarified doubts/apprehensions personally or in front of the class. One question was about 'hobbies' mentioned in the resume. If someone does not have an 'exciting' hobby or rather no hobby at all, does it matter? Though personally I would be interested to know the 'non-schooling' part of any resume, I dont think current day 'recruiter's (even those who do the interview) are like that and it is not the 'game-changer' even for me. Basic technical skills are definitely needed but how much 'bandwidth' the person had in going beyond studies gives me an idea of how well rounded as an individual the person is. Do you know about 'traits' in C++? - as a question or even if answered, doesnt tell much about the candidate. As much as interviewers may think, they are 'evaluating' candidates in interview, I think candidates can also evaluate companies. Infact, that is what I do.

When Intel came to India, they wanted to become big in short time (atleast in headcount ;)). Intel is an honorable company. Texas Instruments was probably the first semiconductor MNC in India (started in 1985) and by virtue of their 'experience', some TI employees were given 'blanket' offers apparently-say on lines of 'twice what you get now'. In 2003, I was called by four people from Intel in one week, each having no clue of the other. That is how 'coordinated' Indians are - maybe management of Intel was unaware but management of Intel India should be aware and maybe couldnt cope with it. In the interview, the interviewer did not even know that Intel has a new office in Outer Ring Road and got offended when I asked whether I had to come to that office :( I repeat, Intel is an honorable company. Last week Microsoft called me (I dont know why). Microsoft is an honorable company and I thought like Texas Instruments, they may also NOT believe in my 'history' or 'geography' but see whether I can be effective in whatever I do. To begin with, the interviewer told me (why?) that he is 'new' to Microsoft (so?) and doesnt know much in C++. Firstly that tells more about Microsoft - asking a newbie to do an 'interview' is a silly decision. I can understand if Microsoft established its Indian operations in last month or even last year. They have been in India for quite some time and to ask someone who recently joined, to take interviews is ridiculous. It was a 1-question-knock-out I guess.

char *p;
p=&p;
strcpy(p,"hi");
printf("%s",p);

I said that it wont work because you cant write into 'address space'. The interviewer had apparently worked in 'embedded systems' before joining Microsoft and said that he can do it. Ok, he is 'better' than me (maybe using 'far' pointers, I dont know), but how does that test my 'programming' skills? I can understand if he asked me 'algorithm' or 'strategy to solve some problem'. This is not even trivia and I dont know what is the point in asking 'Kanetkar' trivia when probably is going to do such 'silly coding', especially in a software company like Microsoft. He wanted to 'complete' the interview but obviously didnt have any clue on how things work in 'other' world. He looked at my resume and asked how many seconds will simulation take - why seconds? what simulation? analog or digital? digital - structured or functional? - I would have liked if he followed Wittgenstein - What you cannot speak of, you must pass over in silence.. 25 minutes and I exited the campus. Microsoft is an honorable company. No pun intended, I am serious ;) Indians are 'single minded' - were, are, will be.

Is there an issue if a person who is recruited as a 'manager' starts handling interviews? Firstly I have an issue with recruiting 'manager's. I think every company has a 'culture' and 'personality'. It takes some time for any new employee (manager or otherwise) to adapt to the new 'environment', take the 'personality' if possible and act accordingly. I strongly believe in 'home grown' managers. The person should have worked in the same 'site' for some years, (get to) know how other employees are, how they react, what their 'opinions' are etc so that when made-a-manager is fully aware of the environment. Air-dropping PhDs or Indian expatriates is simply not going to work, unless the employees turn into stooges (I agree in India they often do). My sister thinks that I am spiteful on desis for no reason but I think I am not alone if other's comments are to go by. Indians are genuinely 'threatened' by 'others' and use 'stories' and 'claim to fame' to retort. If other person is having an i-phone, they are threatened; if other person is Tamil, they are threatened; if other person is fair skinned, they are threatened. They think such paraphernalia of others undermines their own (assumed?) 'importance'. It is no wonder that some Americans (of course, not desis) and Europeans referred my name to their Indian operations eagerly or readily but obviously I didnt hear anything from India. Even in my interview at Qualcomm, I felt that I knew more than the interviewers :o It is not surprising if they are genuinely threatened that my 'entry' could lead to their 'exit' and maybe to add 'I am a Tamil'.

To put the 'attitude' simply, I will help someone ONLY if I think that (s)he will not 'grow' above me. So if it is recruiting 'junior's, people will gladly take the next step. If it is recruiting a 'peer' or 'senior', then they are 'threatened'. No wonder, the first question in Broadcom was how my MCA (masters degree acquired nearly 10 years back) can help in semiconductor industry. If it helped for nearly 10 years, why shouldnt it help any further? I dont even want to answer such questions because the underlying motive is just ONE-UP-MANSHIP. Indian crab always prevents the other crab from going up. Is it that my countenance 'threatens' or 'predisposes' many Indians to interact with me with an 'anti' disposition? You dont know what could turn off in any Indian :( It looks as if everyone wants to make a point with me that they are 'better than me'. Apart from the fact, they dont need to (and they are not ;)), I am to blame in some sense that I dont even try to be 'pacifist'. If they talk some truckload of baloney, I am probably going to make a 'song and dance' about it and make sure that they know that I dont appreciate. Even among colleagues, I find very little 'professional' behavior in INDIA. In TI, one guy (as 'experienced' as me) talks about the biological cycles of one female colleague. In Nvidia, one colleague works from home (WFH) all the time. In NXP, one employee picks up 'contractors' in company provided car at UK and charging them money. Managers (atleast two that I know of or heard) in AMD believed/expected that if I go in bus, it should be in Volvo. Mind you, everybody including myself were getting helluva lot (atleast in my opinion) for what I call as 'silly work' since Jan 2000 in different companies. As Pulp Fiction goes,

if self-preservation is an instinct you possess, you better fuckin' do it and do it quick. I'm here to help. If my help's not appreciated, lotsa luck gentlemen.

It is only 'fair' that they should loook forward for the next opportunity to ease me off. My ex-roommate mentioned about a 'home-spun' philosophy of his colleague-which he christened as 'screwism' and it goes 'there are two kinds of people - those who screw others and those who get screwed'. Corollary is if you are of the first kind and dont want to screw others, you will be immediately put in the second group and screwed first. That pretty much sums up the Indian crab philosophy :)))

Bread crumbs, peels...

As I was having bread for breakfast today, I was reminded of what my mother used to say - dont waste the crumbs, they have more nutrition. Is it true? Similarly even when my mother used to cut apple, she used to mention the same that they have lot of nutrition value. I am not a 'nutrition expert' but I wonder if there is an 'underlying' attitude - good or bad. I am reminded of 'stories' long back told by many people (obviously they may not even remember that they have told me :o). One story went about differences in different 'Iyer' communities in Tamil Nadu. North Arcot Iyers are apparently always rich because they dont waste anything. After eating, their plates will look ready for eating (of course, thats an exaggeration). Similarly such attitude in found in Kerala, they apparently use everything of the plantain ('nenthiram' fruit or vegetable) including the peel, stem etc. Apparently Gujaratis have similar attitude. My sister who is currently in Porbunder told one news/story which was atleast amusing. In showrooms of Gujarat, they dont switch on all lights all the time. Lights will be on only where people are there. If you want to look at some section in showroom, they will switch on the light of that section, present what is present and then switch off :o My sister went with her Gujarati friend from Porbunder to Ahmedabad for weekend class. Her friend thought that she had forgotten to switch off the light in kitchen and apparently didnt sleep in the train :o Till next day morning, when she could confirm that lights were indeed off, she was not her normal self :o

I would think that this bread crumbs, fruit peels are another form of this attitude. One can say 'dont waste' attitude is a good thing. When I used to stay with two other classmates in Bangalore (2000-2004), I used to cook often and at the end of the dinner, we will not 'waste' anything and 'finish' whatever was cooked. Once my classmate from Chennai who had come from US to visit me in Bangalore and heard about 'not wasting' food from us, he said 'hey, your stomach is not a garbage can'. If you dont like it, throw it away. Well that is another way of looking at it. Yet another way of looking at it is to eat everything - may be, thats the closest thing that some can come to - have the cake and eat it too :)

Indian writers in English

Many times, it is better if our idea/thinking is corroborated by another person. We atleast get the satisfaction that another human being is thinking or thought on 'similar lines'. That was the case with the article in Hindu newspaper today - Mirror, Mantra. Though I felt that the author was indulging in euphemisms or maybe the author is a 'natural' pacifist -

No, I am not accusing Rushdie and Naipaul of bland mimicry or of consciously catering to Western opinions

They are not the Other. They are not even different, really. They are the West today.

Unfortunately even an Indian who writes about India in English is not likely to be made visible by agents, clubs and book chains in the West: she has to write about India in certain approved ways, ways that very often depend on a celebration of the “multicultural” West either as actual presence or enabling possibility.

On the other hand, I am fully convinced that all, yes ALL, Indian writers have been conformist not to Indians but to Western audience. I remember an article long back in Hindu about 'occidental'ization and 'oriental'ization - former referring to works of India or the 'East' being "tempered" to suit the Western audience and latter referring to works of UK or US or West being "tempered" to suit the Eastern audience. When I was in my school, I knew that my 'opinion' will be trampled but still I had the opinon that RK Narayan, for instance, was trying to hard to translate appalam, dosai etc - why should he or for that matter any Indian writer? Of course, I liked RK Narayan for his simple and down-to-earth books.

Salman Rushdie - I never understood what was 'great' about him - UK guys should be crazy to give him Booker Prize, but maybe he wrote what they WANTED to read. I found 'Midnight's children' mediocre or taken off from Indian (melo)drama and not really reflective of India, forget Indian muslims. Should a novel or book be 'autobiographical'? I dont know but I am inclined to believe that there should be some 'level' of it because that is how the author perceives this world, the people and the events. My friend once gave a perspective - Salman Rushdie writes about a Jew in India (not many may know that there are Jews in India as well), so he does all the research to get his 'facts' right in his novel and thus 'synthesis'es a novel to bring a new perspective - something like 'what if?'. I can only say that I am not a fan of such techniques. Similarly desis cant write about India of now, they can probably write with old India of their time as background. Obviously world or any country is changing over time continuously. They cannot read newspapers or articles in magazines and newspapers about India and add 'their old masala' to cook up some fiction. Rather it is 'pseudo-fiction' - why should fiction have a 'real canvas/background'? Infact, I am also not keen on scientific fiction. They say (Krugman too says) that Isaac Asimov's Foundation series is great etc but I found it too boring. Going to another planet or changing DNA as in Robin Cook's book etc is 'fiction' and 'fiction' to a great extent is escapist. I rather would like to read what, how and more importantly why things are, the way they are. I think that I can think 'better' than others on how things 'add up', reason out why what happened the way it happened and what 'trends' are.

Something indeed wrong with humans.

I do think that people are having 'sick'ness. Krugman seems to think that in US it is a strange madness. My 'home-spun philosophy' is getting crystallized faster and faster. People are becoming more and more 'single-minded' and maybe, Darwin would have further studied or theorized it further that it is the nature of humans to seek 'compatibility', rather than to make themselves 'compatible'. Is it possible to have the best of all possible worlds? It is this search that people tend to even dismiss/ignore/forget when their current state could be the best state. Preconceived notions, exaggerated fears, misplaced complacency could lead to nothing but harakiri.

In our work, we do face the terms of 'trade-off' - you give some, lose some - in anything. Few/some/many humans do not seem to see the +ve in anything, once they are conditioned/convinced that the 'current condition is detrimental to them'. What is 'best' is not a personal explanation or experience but subject to the people around us? Thus 'richest are the happiest' becomes a truism for those who are seeking the riches. I am reminded of the classic 'Il Postino' - isnt a poor man entitled to his little bit of happiness? If I look at films, it has been 'drilled' into Indian films that 'poverty' is associated with 'misery', 'sadness', 'cries', 'pain' etc. It is only in Tamil films, spearheaded by Bharatiraja which highlighted the life in a village (poor man's world?), humor, romance, tragedgy and all shades of life that is seen all over the world. When Bala highlighted the life of 'marginalia' with aplomb, say in Pithamahan' middle-class and educated 'revolted' saying that 'poverty is being sensationalized'. In their world, poor people should be shown in soiled clothes, starving for months, unable to cover themselves and all such stereotypes. I think this 'image' itself is developed by humans (like any mythology) to justify their 'hypocrisy' ('why I am seeking greener pastures?', 'I am very patriotic even if I get out of the country', 'When I am abroad, I marry outside my religion/caste because I am secular'). I think things could be much simpler if people dont explain and give reasons, but then as I said, something is indeed wrong with humans.

YSR's death

It did start off in a comical note - 'Andhra CM missing' (Tamil note even more rib-tickling) but I, for one, didnt expect AP CM YSR to die. Neither do/can I vote for him nor I support Congress for that matter. I think the 'suddenness' of the end to someone's life does shock me atleast. I am not of the 'emotional' kind but maybe it is wired into nature that I am shocked by 'sudden death's. I had a similar feeling when actor Soundarya died in a similar crash. When the news about his non-availability was coupled with some reports that he was sighted in some village, I thought that either he went to some place without informing others or there was some communication problems, especially when there was also news of heavy rain. Even if the helicopter was going to crash because of rains, my brother-in-law who flies helicopters used to say that helicopters are typically low-altitude carriers, I thought the helicopter should have crashed from a pretty low height and if it fell into some trees, he may have broken some leg or hand. Death didnt have a high probability, atleast in my mind.

I am member of one online community in Orkut (Tamil Nadu Politics) and I was surprised AND sick to see posts where people wished that Karunanidhi, CM of TN, was in that plane or that YSR indeed dies :o I may not cry for any death whether it is relative or others, but still I am not so insensitive or so single-minded to wish so or to indulge in low grade comments. In some sense, it puts into perspective what Joseph Stalin had remarked - one death is a tragedy; one million deaths is just a statistic. He was probably referring to 'exaggerated' reports of casualty in some project - say underground railway work. I think now it is a case of where even one death is a statistic. Looking back, I cant help contrasting how people were to how people are. My grandmother cried when MGR, CM of Tamil Nadu died (I was 9 yrs then). Her husband was a Congress (Kamaraj) loyalist but still death of a human being, who she may not have seen directly even once, moved her. MGR's death was also not totally 'unexpected' given his age, medical history, hospital admissions etc. When she died, I didnt cry and I think it is my mental make-up. Next 'sudden death' was Rajiv Gandhi's death and it was tense in our house because our family friend, a Muslim had the marriage of his daughter who was a close friend of my sister. Practically nothing could move across the roads in the city and all of us including bride and groom WALKED to the marriage hall and marriage had only minimal attendance. Obviously nobody even thought of Rajiv Gandhi or his family or politics, that day.

The death that probably affected me the most till now was that of my grandmother (mother's mother). Maybe I practically lived with her for years, when her son (my uncle) was abroad on work. Also during bouts of hysteria that she had, she shouted at everyone, but NOT ME. Her last days/months were practically alone - my uncle had gone to US and not to come till date. After that event, any death was just a piece of news for me. At the same time, I never mocked or laughed at some death. It may take some more time still for me to come out of the sickening happiness in some people at someone's death.

Where do you want to go today?

Human race has always been nomadic and never content. I am not sure if I am lazy or content but it is difficult to 'move' me, unless I am forced. I think Trichy is the only place that I went, purposefully for my masters at REC (now called NIT) when I could have remained in Chennai to do the same at Anna University. The 'nomadic' move started since then hasnt brought me back to my hometown, though I visit Chennai often. Campus recruitments at college forced me to move to Bangalore and 'nomadic' trysts also tend to become habits, if not addictions. I think I was 'over and out' with my career in 2004 because I didnt think there was anything 'radically' new to learn in semiconductor industry. I have just been going through the motions all these years and my classmate in Bachelors chatting with me last week was suggesting that we should think 'out of the box'. I did apply for say 'teaching' positions but people dont seem to be interested in even 'calling' me for an interview. How out of the box can 'out of the box' be? I am sure if I sit in one place, I will fall into rut (if not fallen already) and cant really think out of the box. Maybe 'nomadic' surge will rekindle that 'out of the box' thinking - I dont know.

I had told him and probably some others quite some years back that 'next wave of growth' has to be in South America and Africa. I had always liked Krugman's simplicity, lot before he won the Nobel Prize, which I suspect he had an 'edge' to win (not in any way undermining his 'competency') because of Jewish origin and anti-Bush stand. I havent read any of his books but many times I thought my thinking coincided with his on 'common topics'. For instance, I was surprised to see this article in NY times website Running Out of Planet to Exploit, which was precisely my point. US could not break into China much and apart from language problems, China cannot bombed like say Iraq, can it be? ;) Only region left in the world is Africa and South America and as I told my friend, we can make a living even if we sell vegetables or fish in a new way in these continents. I guess Spanish is lingua franca in South America and Africa may have lots of dialects and languages :o Reg 'venture'ing out into these places, it will be impossible but doable ;) and lot more interesting to go and try it out. Having said that, these 'thoughts' come into my mind million times during past decade but like any other stereotypical Tamil, I still continue to do what I have been doing :( To put in Tamil actor Vadivelu's words - புடுங்கறது பூராவுமே தேவையில்லாத ஆணி தான்:(

Audio: Cricket and life...

I am of the opinion that every aspect of life is not very different from the other and what one learns from one can be equally applied on the other. Of course, we cannot apply it directly but we have to get the 'idea' out of the 'form' and apply the 'idea'. Applying the 'form' in one onto another will be ludicrous. I would say that 'sports' is the best place to learn/understand a lot of lessons. Being from India, where cricket is the most popular sport (atleast on TV), it is natural that discussions about cricket can be more easily understood by most Indians, than reading tomes of management theories and case studies. I have found Ian Chappell to give a sensible and new perspective on many occasions. Let me give my pick of good chats/discussions.

'Don't discourage unorthodoxy'
Ian Chappell, Michael Holding and Tony Greig analyse unusual cricketers down the years

What makes Australia tick?
Sanjay Manjrekar, Ian Chappell and Tony Greig analyse Australia's dominance of world cricket

'Go forward towards youth'
Should the Big Three of Indian cricket stay or go? Ian Chappell, Sanjay Manjrekar and Tony Greig debate

'Your team should laugh with you'
Tony Greig, Ian Chappell and David Lloyd on cricket's characters and what they bring to the game

'Don't judge a captain on wins and losses'
Ian Chappell and Sanjay Manjrekar discuss why a captain needs to have more powers, and pick their best captains

'Every captain has a shelf life'
Anand Vasu gets Ian Chappell and Sanjay Manjrekar to analyse the difficult art of captaincy

'Great keepers go unnoticed'
Ian Chappell, Michael Holding and Kumar Sangakkara analyse the evolving role of the modern wicketkeeper

'The chatter is out of control'
Sanjay Manjrekar, Ian Chappell and Tony Greig analyse the growing menace of on-field chatter

When is it the right time to go?
Sanjay Manjrekar discusses the issue of retirement with Ian Chappell and Michael Holding

The great Aussie swansong
Two legends of the game going out on their own terms

Sobers is the best
Tony Greig, Ian Chappell and Michael Holding discuss the importance of the all-rounder in modern day cricket

Lara is the best
Sanjay Manjrekar asks John Wright, Tony Greig, Ian Chappell and Ravi Shastri

Adaptability is the key
Are flat tracks the reason for inflated batting averages? Sanjay Manjrekar discusses this with the panel

How good is the modern batsman?
The Champions Trophy showed how much modern batsmen struggle on pitches that had a bit of zip