Bharti

The spring season heralds a new beginning for many in India. It is taxing times, increment time and placements time. Especially for the IIM fraternity( the B schools) it is time to bring the cows to pasture.

What we mean here is that it is placement season and the apex business schools have landed some really big deals this time. The highest grosser is Gaurav Agarwal of Bangalore IIM who got a job offer from Barclays Capital with an annual salary of $193,000 (about Rs 86 lakh), thereby breaking the record of $185,000 secured by a graduate from IIM-Ahmedabad .

Most of the time people are taken in by the figures and never look behind the curtains. Just an MBA degree or doing well in the course does not fetch you the money. It is a strong foundation, the education you achieve before entering the portals of management schools and practical work experience that counts. Barclays, JP Morgan, Merril Lynch, ABN Amro etc want people with that much extra- - which translates into added degrees and work experience most of the time.

Life sucks, is the constant refrain of my 9-year-old.
Ninety per cent of the time I tend to agree with him. Life is a battle. You are battling against time, against your kids, the office hierarchy, the traffic, against the creeping years, grey hairs, growing tummies… the list is endless. What gets me down is more that a kid at that age already finds life so hard.(It is another matter that life starts rocking for him in the next second). They have no illusions.

So what do I do, spend the remaining 10 per cent of the time with the attitude, what the heck, there is only one life to be lived so live it as you like it, forget your grouses, be happy and have a loving Valentine’s Day

Shakespeare said that the world is a stage and I believe my little corner of this world does reflect the realities of this stage. An upwardly mobile, aggressive, competitive generation is just rearing to go. If in the process of reaching the top you trample, shove and jostle others out of the way then it is just a reality of life on the fast lane.

Opportunities and sky rocketing salaries in the IT industry have suddenly opened a Pandora’s box. Small-town citizens who never dreamed of achieving so much in their young lives have access to the best money can buy--Too much too soon--Marriage, house, a car or two and trips abroad are all accessible. What the money does not buy is good sense and balance. A cultural revolution is taking place with values being interchanged for money.

Elderly parents are forced to assume the role of babysitters with no relief from the onerous task. City life is merciless. Wives who seemed suitable in the small town are no longer fitting the reality and are disposed off as access baggage. A whole generation of kids is being reared on the belief that the world owes them and the greatest leveler is money!

The realities are frightening and this is not a play being staged but reality.

The Bangalore bubble seems set to burst. There are enough lamentations about the state of roads, power, traffic , water shortage and now the looming threat of terrorism.

To add to the woes, murder, theft and mayhem have also decided to join the bandwagon. I am sure in posterity Bangalore will be cited as an example as how not to go wrong in building a city.

A small mofussil two-horse town has slowly turned into an urban silicon nightmare. An import of talent, investment and lots of global interest could not compensate for one basic lack--infrastructure.

To top it all is the state governments' total inaptitude or sheer apathy in dealing with the situation. Another contributing factor is that Bangalore is the money making destination--a sort of Las Vegas now where you try your fortune for quick profit but there is no love or commitment to give to the city.

Everyone here is an alien to the other and quite happy to blend into the anonymity, I personally think this is so because it sheds you of inhibitions and responsibilities. What brought this on: a recent visit to a neighbouring state where infrastructure is rolling and the pride shown by the government officials in the good work being done by them was apparent in every smooth tarred road and green waysides.

Information technology and the IT enable services, especially business process outsourcing have changed the shape of the globe. It is no longer circuitous but a flat world where everyone has access to everyone else. Distances are not far but just a press of a finger away be it on a computer, cellphone or i-pod.

I am sure this era will attain the same importance as the industrial revolution in the portals of history. Our great children will talk of the pre-T era and the post-IT one. The socio-economic consequences will be talked about. Emergence of new social classes and equations may happen, maybe even a world where boundaries will not be so rigid. It is already happening, there are many people coming to India from different countries to get job experiences in the IT sector.

The movement is no longer one way with people from poor countries going to the developed world in search of greener pastures. One may find one’s own green pasture anywhere in the world. For most it might just be restricted to the gadgets around you.

I see it happening all around me. Even my work world centres around the computer and the phone. The new gadgets have blurred the lines between office space and the home. There are positives and negatives connected with both.

Finally they are gadgets invented by humans for our use. Depends on us whether we USE them or let them CONSUME us.

I was just reading an article which pointed out that aid is not just a western concept, more and more Asian countries meaning India, China and the Gulf are contributing silently to the aid effort. It is only that the western world traditionally has been the richer cousin and coming more often to the poor people’s aid. This naturally has led them to be a tad bit arrogant about it.

The article further suggested that the non western countries generally tend to give their aid silently and do not tom-tom the fact. They are the first to extend a helping hand in kind and cash when neighboring countries suffer natural disasters or even wars. The Gulf countries especially have been giving huge donations for a long time and China is active in the African countries but it is hard to find what and where. I think it is a more East-West divide than a Big Brother syndrome. The eastern culture believes in helping others, charity does not begin at home. In Islam keeping aside a part of your earnings for charity is decreed and followed strictly by most Muslims to this day. Sharing is a big part of growing up in the Eastern culture. Sharing is a privilege. In the interiors in India privacy is not a big issue, you share your worldly goods without much ado. You share your woes, happiness and gossip openly.
If I remember the first time I thought the self counted was after reading Ayn Rand (as all good teenagers should). Being from a large brood , it was a good concept to grasp; that you owe no one but yourself. But I knew it was just delusional, I was conditioned to consider others. Till date I still think having a full chocolate is a sin, you always shared, in our case the division was never less than into 5 parts. I still cannot allow my son to have a full chocolate. It is bad for his teeth and culture !

The work place scenario sketched by my girlfriends over a general cribbing session that we have every month over coffee. Everyone is welcome to add their experiences. You have finished all your work and are expecting to get on with the next load and your boss/client tells you that you can take it easy. So you do and then what happens, suddenly the same person wants you to finish some work which has to be submitted yesterday. And the attitude is; what is your problem, you sit idle most of the day. Ok so you get on with that work and are stuck and can do with some experienced upper echelon advice. Where has that person gone? He/she has disappeared off the face of the earth and will be available in the next century only. So get on with your work you laggard, so what if he/she was breathing down your neck just 10 minutes ago. When it comes to work, performance review, the answer is; “it is all so easy, I am sure it takes two hours of your time, why do you need to upset the cart and want a pay review, anyways we thought you were here to exercise that brain of yours and not for the money. So let us all say a hurray and cheers to all forms of exercise, the brainier the better.

It is good to have a forum where one can just hammer away at whatever interests, troubles, riles and gets your goat. It is a very liberating experience for someone always hemmed in by the reigning editor of whatever publication one is working for. Believe you me it is a misconception if the general public thinks that a journalist writes to inform or please the lay readers. A journalist is ALWAYS writing to please his bosses and get one up on the competition. If in the process the general business of giving news is achieved then all the more better. Journalism is supposed to be unbiased and objective. In my experience it is always subject to the reigning editor’s objectivity.

I am sure the other professions have their own grouses and inhibiting factors. Discipline, following the rules getting it right is always important. But when the same rules stop one from performing then is the time to change the rules. Change, evolution, openness and creating a challenging atmosphere is what work is all about.
These are some things one does not learn on the job, one learns these skills growing up-at home, interacting with friends and siblings, in the neighbourhood lot playing with friends; at school, in the playfield playing games.

Whether it was playing games or anything else, it was boring to do the usual stuff , only innovation and challenge moved the spirit for us. The same is true for any job. Innovation, change and interaction always creates a challenging environment which in turn gives better results.

The portal is ready for launch barring some last minute cleanups and hiccups. I have yet to witness an event in my work or personal life where last-minute glitches have not run everyone into a tizzy. That is what life is about, the minute you think you have grasped it, it has a tendency to spin you like a top, full 180 degrees and most times you land on your head rather than on your feet. I do not know about anyone else but being a journalist ( a laid-back one at the moment) all my tasks need a deadline, otherwise there is no way in heaven I will touch them. We create our own little crisis situations to get going. I think it is a hangover from my newspaper days where you operate from one deadline to another. But rest assured the task gets done and always on time, ok barely in time.

If it is a group task then teamwork is important. I see it happening two ways. One is the autocratic family way, where the patriarch, the boss, assigns tasks to each member and they are ordered to perform at the best of their ability. You hand in your assigned task, it is accepted or rejected on merit or otherwise by the patriarch. The other is the liberal benevolent family way where each knows what he/she has to do but there is a free flow of information, exchange of ideas, discussions and criticisms. This family also has a head but he/she is not the boss, he/she is the leader, he/she leads the group into the task-guides, cajoles and sees that each delivers his or her best There may be a lot of confusion,angst and delays in the second method, but I for one believe this is the better way as it results in good and quality work. With the first method we just do a job, with the second one we perform work .

Happy Working to everyone. Think, speak, discuss and then work that is my motto, what is yours?!!!

his week went in traveling to hometown New Delhi and trying to keep up with the workload. Internet and freelancing, thankfully, helps you in keeping your own hours.

I have been trying to put a piece on minimum wages together. The task is not easy. I can make it a dry article on legislation and implementation or can try and explain to the world and hopefully to the targeted audience (the minimum wage earners) the avenues open to them.

The labour population in India is vast. In the organized industrial sector, there are trade unions, factory and industrial acts which ensure bare minimal social and health insurance coverage. It is in the unorganized sector that difficulties arise. Labor legislation and implementation in India is not centrally controlled. Some laws are made by the Central government some by the states and mostly implementation is in the hands of the states. There are 28 states and 7 union territories in India, each having its own labour laws and implementation process.

Mostly the bare minimal wages are in force in some places with no provisions for the five-yearly revisions. The unorganized and unskilled sectors are the most neglected. The farm labour is at the mercy of the landlord. The domestic labourers and those employed in small-scale home based production have no recourse. The new economic age of contractual and outsourcing of labour is further adding to the woes. Another fact is that there is no social security cover for the unskilled labour in the unorganized sector, that means nearly 40 per cent of the working Indian population has nothing to fall back upon once they lose their earning capacity.
Legislations are in place but where is the will to implement it? There are labour commissions in every state going upto the local level with labour courts. The sheer number of disputes and delays just defeats the cause.

The answer is education and organizing the workers through grass root level self help groups who can educate, inform and even guide them in the correct procedure in demanding their rights.

In India we have small grass root level groups called Self Help Groups (SHG) formed in villages to help them channelise resources for better livelihoods. The group members are mostly village women who are taught among other things how to save money and start a small bank which gives loans to the needy in the group at the lowest possible interest. No reneging on interest is allowed. It is rare that any one lapses.

Most organizations have found that it is the women who need to be involved if any programme has to be implemented, be it rural cooperative banking, hygiene drive, illiteracy programmes or even taking up new livelihoods. Properly guided, they have been active in getting the village and district administration to release funds, undertake water and electricity projects. This is inspite of being forcibly kept away from village government bodies. They do not need that political forum, they are more than capable of getting their needs met through sheer persistence and group strength.

Even during disasters, NGOs and government bodies have found that involving the local people and especially women works better if proper rehabilitation programmes have to be implemented. They simply have more resilience, a hungry need to see the children well fed and simple native cunningness and commonsense. What brought this on, one simple statement by a male colleague,  “You women don’t know how hard we have to work , so much of intellect and thinking is involved in every small task.”
No wonder, the rest of the tasks are taken care of by women.

Welcome to the world of Indian workplaces. Unlike the general belief, India is not about exotica and poverty, but yes it is about contrasts. We have the most abject poverty and the latest in gadgets and technology and yes nobody finds it odd. Because for us everything goes-'chalta hai'as we say. Our workculture is very school marmish, we are great believers in hierarchy. But the generation next is learning the new ways and soon(hopefully) the work ethos will be more performance based than anything else. It is great to be a part of wageindicator, paywizard and paycheck.in. We are still finding our feet but hopefully will be going full blast very soon.