Of Starting higher education in the "States"

It's been a long time since I blogged last and that is'nt only because my ass was too lazy to scrawl pointless stuff on this page. During that considerable amount of time, I was busy doing nothing for the most part, except for a lot of networking on the net in connection with my imminent departure to the U.S to do my masters at Georgia Tech. Oh! Yes. I know what you are thinking - "Here goes another westernized desi (read country-deserting asshole) to pour his money and blood into that all powerful (but still wanting more power) super country - The united States of America". Now that I 've allowed all the resident indians (employed or otherwise) a nice little poke at me, I implore you to atleast listen to my side of the argument.

My choices after my Undergrad at PSG Tech, Coimbatore were pretty simple - Take up the job offer from ITC Limited at 4.85 lpa and join the CAT bandwagon, or join the "2 years work then M.S." bandwagon, or just take the next fully desi loaded airplane to the land of opportunities. The first choice is the most lucrative, and sensible choice given the job scenario in India and my fellow indians who are out of a job will probably kick my butt for skipping that choice. Yes, ITC is a swell company that showers employees with money. Yes, in two years my pay will be up further. Yes, I can always write the CAT and hopefully get on the IIM bandwagon. So why din't I go for it? One, I don't want to end up in a Tobacco firm for the rest of my life. Two, I dunno if I'll really love the job. Three, I have no illusions about the CAT - there is no chance in hell of me getting into IIM although I preferred doing an MBA as opposed to an M.S. Four, I somehow feel that I've not yet found my true calling in life. And further study seemed warranted to overcome all these short comings.

I am not ashamed to admit that I wrote the GRE cause it was easier than CAT and chances of getting into a good Master's school is better than landing an MBA at a reputed school. And there was this small thing in our family - Almost all engineering graduates in my family did or are doing their master's abroad and I din't wanna feel left out. No doubt you must probably be wondering what kinda person would base his career on such excuses but hey, every average person thinks and acts like how I did in this situation. All students have this basic neccessity to fit into the social fabric, to be in the flow of the crowd, to be in a comfort zone. It is the eccentric and the very ambitious who buck the trend and swim against the current and I am most certainly not one. And all I want to do in the U.S is study, work in a reputed firm for 3 years or so, gain experience and then use that to land a nice management job in India. No, please don't lambast me for sounding cliched. Iknow what you are thinking - "they all say the same thing - that they will return. But every single one settles down and forgets his country". I assure you that I can never ever settle down in the U.S. It's gr8 to be here for on a vacation or for study or to just get to know the world better. But, settling down here is not my cup of cake. And I most certainly wouldn't dream of starting a family here. No, dude, I am going back to India even if it means a lesser paid job at the end of five years.

All said and done about my personal stuff, I wanna put some questions at the Indian Education system. I obtained 85% in my 12th grade exams. In India that wasn't enough to get me into even a mediocre undergraduate college. I had to pay 6 lakhs to join a good college. And despite being declared "unfit" by the indian education system to study in that college, I passed out with distinction and a gpa of 8.53. I think that essentialy highlights the fundamental flaws in the Indian education system. Now this gpa and a decent score ( by no means a gr8 score) in the GRE got me a place in no less than7 reputed U.S. Universities (out of the ten I applied to) including Georgia Tech - The university which ranks no.4 in the u.s and no.8 in the world for the Engineering Field. Now, I dare anyone to tell me why I shouldn't have taken up this offer and opt to struggle for opportunities in India. As long as students with good scores are denied quality education in India, the so-called brain drain will continue and the indian education system and its pathetic "quota system" is to be blamed. To a lot of people this may sound like shitty excuses of someone who just din't have it in him to shine in India and had to run to the States but believe me, there are tons of students who feel just like me. And by no means am I betraying our beloved country (even with its numerous flaws), just because I am going to study in a different country. There is truly no place like home.

Of exercising one's franchise and the worthlessness of the voting exercise as practiced in India

The election fever was upon India again as the whole country geared up for the Lok Sabha Elections. The UPA and the NDA were the primary alliances in the race and given the umpteen no of faux pas' both sides have been commiting in the run upto the election it was tough predicting a winner. Personally I think the likes of Rahul Gandhi should be stoned and the BJP cauterized for its racist and religion based politics. The BJP has done well in the past ( of particular mention is the golden quadrilateral which is bearing fruit only now) under Vajpayee but somehow post-vajpayee they seem to lack a honest leader. Advani is good at agression and is a skilled politician but somehow his candidature doesn't seem upto the mark. He lacks the intellectuality of Manmohan Singh and too many of his party members frequently mouth off and make it difficult for him to run a tight ship. That said, the congress has had its share of troubles like the pardoning of Quattrochi and other matters. 

Elections in Tamil Nadu is one huge boiling cauldron of crossings and double crossings, ship jumpers and piggy-backers, film stars and ancient men hardly able to stand, weapon brandishing thugs and murderers, all of whom are the so called politicians that run the state. The present election scenario had the DMK allying with the congress and the AIADMK with the Left Parties and PMK ( led by that piggy backing bastard Ramadoss). Both corners campaigned long and hard and spent thousands of crores wooing voters with false promises and more false promises. Rumour has it that the congress paid Vijayakanth's DMDK party 300 crores to contest all 40 constituencies alone in an apparent bid to split the AIADMK vote here. Most of the campaigning involved both sides playing the blame game and the hot issue of the blame game was the plight of the tamils caught in the civil war in Sri Lanka. The amount of propaganda and media coverage given to all this unholy mess resulted in only one thing. The voting public were completely denied of any information with even the semblance of truth on any issue under the sun.  Come election day,I went along with my family to my native village to cast our votes ( for some reason we still havent applied for a change in our voting constituency to anna nagar where we currently live.) Our village Ayanambakkam is located near the ambatur industrial estate and is fast becoming heavily industrialized but the core part of the village is still dominated by a couple of rudimentary tar streets and our extended family's three houses. For many miles surrounding this are pristine farm lands and rural dwellings where people thrive mainly on agriculture. Such a rural lifestyle is hardly seen anywhere else within the city limits. As we neared our village via potholed and undrivably rough streets in our car we could see clutches of people hurrying to and fro, some shouting slogans, others staring at the metallic intrusion in their path, some going to voting booths and other party workers generally shouting and milling about. Near the booth some election officials were camped at a couple of tables and chairs and were giving out voting slips to people after checking their voters list. Now, our extended family have been staunch supporters of the DMK party and my grandfather's generation was actively involved in party politics and almost everyone in the village knew our family members and our political stance. So, as our car neared the booth, we were mobbed by rough looking people on all sides each one hollering at us to cast votes for the one party or the other. Hurried and hustled among this dangerous looking crowd we finally got our voting slips ( torn pieces of used paper) and stood in line at our "ward". The ward was accomodated in one of the class rooms of a govt school there and it was every bit as shaby as a pig sty. A couple of election officials sat were inside the room having  a few tables, benches and the electronic voting machine. With further ado, we went in and voted. While coming back also we were mobbed by the crowd asking us if we had voted for their party or not.

The way the elections are conducted itself says a lot about the setup of the govt and the democratic facade behind which it hides. Under paid officials, disgustingly maintained voting booths, scant regard for election rules and regualtions all leading to people losing faith in exercising their franchise. This year around 67 % percent of registered voters turned up to vote. When such a low percentage( of which a good percentage votes for the party which bribes them or promises them the most) of voters turn up the verdict is not going to matter much. The same vote bank of people who voted 30 years ago are the ones voting today . So where will the change come from?. People say the younger generation will choose their leaders more wisely but my argument is that the youth brigade is so darn disgusted and uninterested that a lot of them dont vote. When some of them do, they do so without a good study of the party and its manifest. In reality it doesn't really matter what is in the manifest, because it's a given that politicians are corrupt to the core and do nothing for the people. A good government can only be formed if close to 90 % of registered voters exercise their franchise and remove corrupt politicians and anti-people parties. This year's Lok Sabha elections ended in a resounding win for the UPA govt. and quiet frankly nobody knows if this is for the better or worse. As usual our hyper sensitive sensex zoomed up 20 % on these results and was closed. That is about the only significant thing that the results have shown. Now the time has come for  alliances to fall apart and the blame game starts among the losing parties and horse trading for minister posts starts and the whole process repeats itself in a vicious circle. Oh, one can go on and on about the election antics of this great country but I will stop here since I suspect that anyone bored enough to read my blog must be fed up with all my rants above!!

Of job cuts, the recession, the commuting in chennai, inching behind smoke-belching metal monsters, traffic snarls, insane deadlocks, and road rage!

Singara Chennai is fast becoming a urban hell full of the metal contraptions whose invention seemingly was a turning point in man's history - the automobile. With the city swelling with skyscrapers, IT parks, and an alarming no of assorted buildings every which way it begs the question - Is the city on infra-steroids? The whole world is clamoring about recession, and yet, at first glance there is not so much of an inkling to suggest that in our city. Teens keep flocking to cafes, malls, cinemas and pubs, the marriage business is booming like never before, the hip keep splurging inside expensive lounges and restaurants, the omnipresent middle class keep smothering discount stores and keep falling for the decade old marketing gimmicks, couples date away happily, the IT world keeps chugging away despite huge job cuts, and the city's notorious roads come to a stand still ever so often. That said, the younger gen, particularly those just finishing college, are in quite a fix, with job cuts ruling the country in the presesnt recessionist situation. Hirings have been frozen in over a dozen reputed companies, layoffs have increased to 3-4 days a week, huge MNCs like Caterpillar have cut jobs by almost 20%, the bench size is burgeoning in the IT industries and a general aura of depression prevails in the city. Add to this the rush hour traffic in the streets and u get one angry crowd of citizens fretting and fuming. Indian commuters are well known for their utter disregard for road rules of all kinds and this is one of the main reasons for the traffic deadlocks clogging the city's arterial roads like the mount road, the 100 feet road and the Poonamallee high Road. The higher class always blame the govt for the lack of big roads, poor maintenance and inefficiency. The middle class are too busy blaming the increase in the wealth of the city and hence in the increase in traffic and buildings without parking spaces. The lower income people and the poor dont give a hoot about the traffic and keep jay-walking, encroaching pavements, and in general do all they can to contribute to the traffic snarls. What people dont realise( and this goes for both the educated and the uneducated) is that with a little bit of regard for the rules, a little bit of patience and common sense almost half the traffic problems in this city can be solved. For example I was going to a function yesterday from anna nagar west to T.nagar (near pothys) and it took me nearly 2 hours to cover a distance of about 5 kms via the 100 feet road. Insane bus drivers squeezed their way through tiny gaps in the traffic, with utter disregard for traffic signals and automobiles nearby. Two-wheelers cut and swerved in and out of traffic, auto rickshaws screamed past disgruntled cars and jay-walkers, the air was full of the cacophony of the horns with the lane system still being unheard of in India. Chennai, the bustling metropolis that has so much development, so much modernisation, so many avenues for business, entertainment, health care, industry, juxtaposed with the reeking cooum river, the hideously inhuman slums, the sweltering hot weather, the trademark traffic snarls and gag inducing levels of pollution, is still mired in umpteen no of problems all of which can only be solved with considerable help and cooperation of the citizens themselves.