World as I Think

I have always felt that value system is a continuum measuring the same thing, its all about where we are comfortable being stationed, you cannot rigidly define something as right or wrong based on the purpose, for we can never completely understand the outcome. Even if the rules apply then, there is very little chance that we can carry it forward for the rest of our life.

As I was on a DVD buying spree last Saturday, this view got even more staunch and raunchy. I was escorted by a fellow friend to this "Pirate" shop which was a snooky place and it too crooky even for two people. We bought almost 20 DVDs, the shopkeeper agreed to price a disc at around Rs 40/- .I was fairly fine with it as I buy it around Rs 70/- at my place, what a bargain for me anyway. My friend was haggling for a lower price, I said "We spend lavishly on so many things and this Rs 5/- is not going to make any difference; It would make a lot of difference to them".

The deal was done, as I walked, he said "Fool", I said "what??????”My friend was a banker, He gave a starchy fact which paved a parchy look on me "There is no moral hegemony that you can assume, You know what, that guy has deposited 25 lacs in our bank and has about 15 lacs in the bank which is above us?". I felt like quacking, I was a demeaned flacker.
The selfish gene knows how to survive, for it is its basic instinct

There is a friend of mine living in another part of the world on a assignment, he uttered a strange statement which still intrigues me. He said that he would not invest in mutual funds in India because he did not want a return for which he had not "intelligently" applied himself; to be short he was not interested in free money. I didn't reply then, I was shouting in my mind "Do you think it is fair to earn in foreign currency and translate into a rupee which is at least 10 times more for the same job in India”. Leave alone the contention whether the domestic salary is justified, he was exploiting currency arbitrage and adding to inflation.
You can forgo the sugar candy, for you have a chocolate truffle in your lunchbox

Last year, a friend of mine was facing a dilemma about taking one of the two offers he had, one of them was an eye boggler when it came to pay package and the other one strict "enjoy your work" profile with a moderate package. I knew from his talks that he had already decided to forgo the later and I knew his staunch views that life can be sustained only with money and others would ensue. He asked for my view, I knew it was not worth arguing or convincing him, for he can never understand it unless he experiences it, good content job with a moderate salary is a great "happiness churner" than bad job with a great salary. I gave him hints but nothing could change his direction, Inertia prevailed over momentum. After a couple of months he resigned his high perky job and took the happy content job.
Nobody can teach experience, reasoning can, but nobody wanna try it unless experience invokes it

In my view, there is no selfless act I have witnessed, for helping others even at our expense give us happiness!.Wisdom is not in adopting rules but understanding them, so is value system!

(PS: even the story tags in Italics are futile rules but you never know)

How often do we come across this question from parents, peers, appraisers and who not? It could a genuine eager to know the other person, mere snoopiness to mock the present status or a mere "kill my time" question.

If you ask a twelfth grade guy, he would "instinctly" say that he would want to become an Engineer or Doctor. It would make futile sense if I gonna churn a para of crap as to why we have created such a stereotype answer. To be short, we have not even tried to get out of the hang over which procreated cocoons of security, illusionary pride and questionable materialism for toooooo a long. We have miserably failed be unique.

If you ask this question "what are you doing?" or "what was your background?”Maybe, I am skewed with my social conglomeration. You can be blind, deaf or even insane to guess it. Our current generation is far smarter, we would lop side the opponent with a mere objective answer "Analyst" (the prefixes may change- research, business, software, this and that...)

Not that we cannot do different jobs with same suffices, analytically it translates to "Cut, Copy & Paste" according to the mandates of the bully sitting in a different time zone, taking an outsourcing ride in this Flat world. Nobody wants to dare beyond the IT profiles to make a living, its kinda taboo, if you say that you want to be a journalist, civil engineer or a geologist.

The recent strengthening of the rupee was not a sweet spot to be, particularly for the companies which have thrived on low labor cost "advantage”. Infosys reported the first earnings dip as the rupee seems to be happy, flirting at around 40.Its going to be the same story which is to be reported across industries which built exchange rate as their source of competitive advantage.Kudoos to RBI, It's high time somebody teaches some real lessons to Corporate India which was buoyant with a dirty float!.

There is a buzz that we have to spend about $450 bn in the next couple of years in India , I am not even considering the private investment which is going to flood our country, the infrastructure boom is all set to hit us. The question is, do we have a talented pool or domestic competence to take this forward? There is such a deficit of civil engineers to execute such mass scales! There aren't able politicians or talented policy makers who can march us to the next level. Irrespective of their background, they have all been "Cast Away” in the IT Island, happily replicating "Ctrl X, Ctrl C, and Ctrl V" and that is what they could achieve out of their rigorous education.

Iam not denying that the surge in the economy started with such low value adding jobs and it kind of even catered to the mass employment of people who completed professional education. It’s time to wake up, maybe, we can survive for some more time, and we can be the back office for the world but for how long?. The world has billions of people who are willing to work at even lower wages. It is just a matter of time till somebody gives a taste of our own medicine.

We are trying to build hugeeee towers with a vacuum basement, we would eventually collapse. Our Indian companies don’t have a product we are just highly paid coolies.It high time to map Porter's model for India.

We need Products, Intellectual property and Indispensable talent pool.

Let's get rid of this stereotyping. We need to retain core talent and diffuse a more pragmatic approach to education. America is the superpower not because it has it dollar as the reserve currency of the world. It is because; it has the intellectual hegemony which is nurtured in their universities and corporate research labs of their country!