Label

A little baby is born,

And there's no time to waste.

She can cry if she wants to,

But she can't afford to rest.


Don't let go of any label,

Any stamp to put on her face-

Stamps of religion, class, and caste,

Of country and race.


She'll carry all the tags

Till the day she's dead.

Don't leave her any choice,

And there's no need to be afraid.


The world is a big cellar, and each one of us -

A bottle of wine.

Be proud of your labels -

For they taste divine.

Independence Day

I spent the first twenty one years of my life in Kolkata. I had a decent education, primarily because I was born in a well to do family. At present I am pursuing higher studies in the US.

I have many friends - all of them belong to the same social category. Some are software engineers in India, some did their MBAs from reputed institutes, some will settle in the US for the rest of their lives, and some will stay back in their home country, joining the same herd of software engineers, bankers and university professors.

For the purpose of this blog post, I will refer to these people as "We". To put it briefly, "We" denotes the urban middle class. Of course, I belong to this set of people. Every statement about "We" also applies to me.

We are Indians, and we love our country. Typically, our patriotism takes one of the following forms: 1) Cheering for India during cricket matches. 2) Appreciating movies like Rang De Basanti. 3) Admiring the Indian Army. 4) An intense disdain for corrupt politicians, as if these politicians are the only people who are ruining the country. 5) Adulation for "apolitical" activists like Kiran Bedi and Anna Hazare. 6) Anti-reservation views. Specifically, the claim that we have advanced in our careers because of "merit", and the accident of birth had no role to play in our lives.

I could go on adding more items to the above list. However, one item will remain conspicuously absent, namely, the item concerning the majority of Indians - the people living in the villages, the farmers, the dalits, the village women, the landless laborers and millions of others who had never been to Mcdonalds or the university classrooms - those 836 million Indians who live on less than 50 cents per day.

For people like us, it is common practice to cherish the Independence Day by watching movies like "Lagaan" or "Rang De Basanti". For a change, this time why don't we watch a documentary called "Nero's Guests"?



If you are an Indian and reading this blog (the people belonging to the second category have become an endangered species on the verge of extinction), please check out this one hour documentary. Unlike Lagaan or Rang De Basanti, probably you have never heard of this movie, let alone watching it. I guarantee that you will not be wasting your time.

We are the Nero's guests. Today I wish all of us a very happy Independence Day.

Jane Austen and Indian Middle Class

A girl is getting married. She holds a masters degree and is unemployed.

A girl, still in college, is in a relationship with an accomplished software engineer. She plans to get married as soon as she finishes her undergrad.

A young man is looking for prospective grooms for his sister. He is even prepared to accede to demands for dowry.

A girl joins a software company after graduating with a B.E. degree. Immediately she starts a groom-hunt with active encouragement from her parents. Come what may, she has to tie the knot before reaching a certain age.

I mentioned a few incidents from the lives of my personal acquaintances. It is patently obvious that these are not isolated events. Instead, they represent a typical mindset of Indian middle class; and I see an uncanny similarity between the plight of modern Indian women and her counterparts in early nineteenth century England, as depicted in wonderful novels by Jane Austen. A girl is given proper education. She goes to colleges and universities, but ends up being treated like a mortgage loan that must be disposed of before the retirement of her father. It is even more tragic to see the prejudices being reinforced by conscious participation of the victims. The girls themselves consider groom-hunting to be of much more importance than job-hunting, and as if to substantiate the point, no girl wants to marry a man who earns less money than herself. Undoubtedly there are exceptions to the above statement, but I am afraid they are too small in numbers to make any difference to the prevailing situation.

Alma Mater

I did my undergrad from a university in Kolkata. I made some great friends, was lucky to be mentored by a bright young professor, and spent some wonderful time dreaming about algorithms, girls and my future as a researcher in theoretical computer science. It has been more than two years since graduation, and with the benefit of hindsight, I have to confess everything was not all right in my alma mater.

We put too much premium on success in competitive exams. One becomes a superstar if she manages to crack IIT. As an ordinary mortal, I was not able to attain this extraordinary feat. But I somehow got into a university of reasonable repute that guarantees a job in the software profession. There students (including myself) used to bunk classes on a regular basis; most of the classes were not worth attending anyway. Copying was rampant in class tests, occasionally even in semester exams. I was guilty in this count as usual. Majority of the professors were bad teachers, majority of the students did not consider studying to be one of the top priorities.

Ours is a peculiar society that judges people by their ranks in competitive exams. I sometime wonder about the extent to which professional success and exam scores are correlated. Yet I have seen people boasting of their academic backgrounds quite often. A person should be evaluated on the basis of her professional achievement after she gets out of college, not by the name of the college she managed to get into. The education system can do with some reform.

I am neither proud nor ashamed of my college days. I simply cherish the sweet memories.

NRI puja

I came across an interesting article by Ramchandra Guha.

Idle Worship, Or The Non-Resident's Role Play

It is surely worth some introspection.

Mind Your Language

Do you expect a child of Indian origin, born and brought up in US, to be proficient in her mother tongue? My personal experiences, garnered from intermittent encounters with NRI families over the course of past ten years, suggest she will understand the language perfectly well, but prefer talking in English even to her parents. The situation is similar to me being able to comprehend Hindi, and at the same time being extremely uncomfortable in using it as means of verbal communication.

Although it is painful to see a Bengali child conversing in English with her Bengali parents, I should not be passing a moral judgment. My own grandparents migrated from Bangladesh, and I have very little emotional attachment with our neighboring country. Perhaps the kids in question see themselves primarily as US citizens, and just like me, have little interest in the region her immediate ancestors migrated from. Intriguingly, on most occasions, the parents of these kids are quite fond of Bengali culture. They listen to Rabindrasangeet, take part in quintessential Bengali addas with their friends and colleagues in the weekend, and behave just like any other person residing in Kolkata. It is not uncommon to see the parents trying to initiate a conversation with the kid in Bengali, only to get exasperated as she invariably replies back in English.

There are a few plausible explanations for this behavior. It is true that the child has no option of learning the language in school, she has very few Bengali friends. Her only exposure to the language is at home, at the adda sessions with her parents' colleagues, and during the annual trip to Kolkata.

The paradox is each of the above statements hold equally well for a kid born and brought up in Bombay or Bangalore; but you rarely see such a child speaking in Hindi with her parents.

Feel free to comment if you can shed some light.

Feminist Rant

March 8th was women's day. The upper house of Indian Parliament passed the historic women's reservation bill on March 9th. Though I have serious misgivings regarding many aspects of the bill, it is heartening to see the issue of female empowerment receiving a degree of political attention that was long-overdue.

I grew up in an urban middle class society and have never been to a village. Thus it is not appropriate for me to comment on the grave socio-economic discriminations the females suffer in rural India. I will rather highlight some practices, quite demeaning to women, that are still prevalent amongst the so called educated sections of the populace.

1) A girl has to get married before a certain age, even if she is not financially independent by that time.

2) The husband should be professionally more established (in terms of job profile) than the wife.

3) The husband should be older (and taller) than the wife.

4) Even if both the husband and the wife are working, it is the wife's duty to manage the household chores.

5) If the parents of two kids (a boy and a girl) are constrained financially and have to make a choice, the boy will be encouraged to go for higher studies (PhD / MBA) while the girl will be married off as quickly as possible.

6) The girl's family will pay for the bulk of the cost of organizing the marriage.

7) It is the wife's duty to give up or change her job (or seek a transfer) and relocate to the place where the groom is working. She should not expect her future husband to relocate to her place.

8) A woman cannot preside over a religious ceremony. How many female purohits have you seen?

I can only hope the next generation will be more liberal and open-minded than us, and things will change for the better.

Belated HAPPY WOMEN'S DAY!!!