Wherever I look things seem to be going green. Well, maybe not Gurgaon so much unless you count the green glass that encases many building that are mushrooming in what used to be vast lands of shrubbery and a few trees before. But everything else.
Take this morning. I started the day going through the Obama inauguration press (I wasn’t given a choice to read much else by any of the newspapers this morning). It said that Al Gore, the maker of ‘An Inconvenient Truth’,will be amongst the key people influencing this government from the sidelines and that global environmental protection is going to be amongst the key focus areas of his term.
In office, the first thing I did was interview an engineer who claimed to have designed a green/hybrid car prototype a few years ago and subsequently won many national and international awards for that. This reference took about 25% space in his resume. A conversation on electric and hybrid cars took about 20% of the total time I spent with him in the interview. As I got back to my computer, there were two ‘green emails’ waiting for me amongst a host of others. One from Greenpeace and another on an internal BCG research on consumer behaviour w.r.t. green products in times of recession. (WHO thinks up this stuff!!!)
Being one of the first few members to join the environment club in school and getting an award from EPA, US for a science project I did in class VIII, it is easy for me to make myself believe I care about the environment. So, this overwhelming green-ification of everything around me made me feel happy, at peace with myself. The world was moving in the right direction. Our kids may have a planet to live on after all.
I imagined a world with a green index for everything. ‘How Green are you?’ it would boldly ask and quickly measure. For a car company, what % of their cars sold are electric or hybrid? For a manufacturing company – do they use bio-degradable materials? Publishing houses will try to run on recycled paper alone. Office buildings will have solar panels for a large chunk of their energy needs and restaurants will only use organic food and charge prices that one may need to sell an organ for to buy.
But wait, on this green index that I plan to devise and promote, how green am I? On a scale of 1-10, would I be an 8 or a 9?
Unfortunately the answer is sad and scary. Some of the facts: we own 3 cars for a sum total of 2 people in the house and never wait more than 5 minutes for each other to share a car to our respective works that are 100m apart. We may talk about buying a hybrid but we know that we will drive it speeds and RPMs that won’t tax the battery too much. We have immense pride in our house and believe that using multiple low voltage bulbs in the house and keeping them all on at all times, makes the house look prettier. To be honest, it actually does, but that is not the point. We don’t attempt to recycle anything but newspaper – which is also an assumption – given that the maid takes it all once a month and who knows what she does with it. Separating trash into biodegradable, recyclable and others is a far cry!!
I can go on… but my scorecard does not have negatives.
So, does reading news, talking and thinking about environment protection and climate change make me an Earth lover? Does donating Rs.100/month to Greenpeace get me there?
Let me first go and turn off those little lights…
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Sing a song, oh baby Sing Along
On an average weekday I spend about 10 hours at home, 9 at work, about 1 in the gym/out walking, ~ 2 in the general entertainment category of movies/eating out/shopping/ visiting friends/family and another 2 hours in the car. Including the weekend, the ‘in-car’time probably starts stretching closer to 20. Hence I would have to say that cars with Bluetooth phone connectivity are a gift straight from heaven!!
Till about 4 weeks ago, Sumit and I spent ~30% of our car travel time discussing what music to listen to. And then one day Hit 95 FM, Delhi’s (umpteenth!!) #1 hit music station, suddenly put an end to our lively discussions on the ‘Dire Straits vs. U2 vs. Norah Jones vs. Rabbi…’ conflict. (I have to admit this claim to stay honest – that I made so boldly in my first post - is sometimes really hard to live up to). For good measure, we also keep some Thievery Corporation, Miles Davis, Vivaldi – Four Seasons, Jagjit Singh – Mirza Ghalib, etc in the car but they are, let’s say, not as popular as the recently acquired Rihanna CD.
With Hit 95FM belting out an eclectic mix of the latest in American and British rock, pop and rap, interspersed once in a while with the more familiar and hum-able 80s and 90s popular fare, we effectively said goodbye to the car CD player. The discussions on what to hear were quickly replaced by schzam-ing every song on the iPhone and singing along with the few songs that were soon becoming familiar. On-lookers would have surely been jealous of our satisfied sighing and frequent cooing sounds accompanied by expressions of the variety “Oh, this is great! We can totally stay on top of new music now!” If it were a Karan Johar type hindi movie, our bliss would have been a perfect moment to cut to a shot of an adoring elder parent (of the variety often played by Kiron Kher) to say, “hai main mar jawan, inhe kissi ki nazar na lag jaye”
And that is exactly what happened! Kissi ki nazar hi lagee hogi.
One day, just 15 minutes into an hour + drive, after having sung along to a new catchy song that goes, “Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday…. Sunday, Monday..”, Hit 95 FM, Akon and I were now trying to match rhythm on “I just wanna love you, love you…all that I can” Youtube tells me this is the ‘clean’ version of the song and the not so clean one replaces ‘love’ with ‘F^&*’. All was well, when suddenly, accidentally I switched the radio to 98.3 Mirchi. There it was “Haule, Haule se hawa lagti hai, Haule haule se dawa lagti hai…” I let the song be and then followed the more beautiful and meaningful “Hai tujhe bhi izaazat” from Life in a Metro.
But NO, we had heard this stuff before, and this was our precious time to catch up on all that’s new on the pop and rock scene. We switched back and there was someone singing “I just wanna be ok, be ok, be ok, be ok, be ok….” The beat was unconventional and catchy for sure, but my desi mind, often under no control of me, decided to have some fun and started translating the song to see what it would be like in Hindi. “Main chahti hoon, main theek hoon, theek hooon, theek hoon, theek hoon.” Next it translated, “Sunday, Monday...” into Hindi until it was in an uncontrollable translation mode. Have you ever tried this? If no, NEVER DO IT!!!!! EVER!!!!
It did not take long to realize the most of the stuff on Hit 95FM when compared to even popular hinidi film music was not exactly in the same genre as say a “Hai Gujarish”. from Ghajini.
When it came to lyrics and beats this stuff was definitely more in line with ‘Lucky Boy’ and ‘No Entry’ (I am not sure why both the songs I picked for comparison were done by Ms. Basu.. maybe food for thought for another post later)!!
It has been 10 days and unfortunately this translation syndrome continues. Hit 95FM in the car is accompanied by my besura hindi translations of their songs and while this definitely makes for some good laughs, no matter how catchy the beat, we just cannot get ourselves to sing to it anymore!
In the last 4 weeks, Popular english music has changed for me forever. I think it is time to admit that I am old and am likely to remain happy arguing over tried and tested U2, Floyd and Norah Jones rather than ‘get with the latest music scene’!
Hindi radio channels are unlikely to have my affiliation given the endless senseless ads (the only radio ad ever worth listening to from an entertainment perspective was lexi pens – strongly urge you to check out the jingle on their website if you are not familiar with it – if you are under 18 adult approval recommended), the more-boring-than-a-corpse callers, the chirpy RJs and the equal focus on ‘lucky boy’ and ‘haule haule’ in terms of music. But I will admit that I am considering investing in some serious amounts of hindi music! God, I did not think this day would ever come!!! But then who would have thought an Indian composer would win the award for originial score in a movie at the Golden Globes!
Till about 4 weeks ago, Sumit and I spent ~30% of our car travel time discussing what music to listen to. And then one day Hit 95 FM, Delhi’s (umpteenth!!) #1 hit music station, suddenly put an end to our lively discussions on the ‘Dire Straits vs. U2 vs. Norah Jones vs. Rabbi…’ conflict. (I have to admit this claim to stay honest – that I made so boldly in my first post - is sometimes really hard to live up to). For good measure, we also keep some Thievery Corporation, Miles Davis, Vivaldi – Four Seasons, Jagjit Singh – Mirza Ghalib, etc in the car but they are, let’s say, not as popular as the recently acquired Rihanna CD.
With Hit 95FM belting out an eclectic mix of the latest in American and British rock, pop and rap, interspersed once in a while with the more familiar and hum-able 80s and 90s popular fare, we effectively said goodbye to the car CD player. The discussions on what to hear were quickly replaced by schzam-ing every song on the iPhone and singing along with the few songs that were soon becoming familiar. On-lookers would have surely been jealous of our satisfied sighing and frequent cooing sounds accompanied by expressions of the variety “Oh, this is great! We can totally stay on top of new music now!” If it were a Karan Johar type hindi movie, our bliss would have been a perfect moment to cut to a shot of an adoring elder parent (of the variety often played by Kiron Kher) to say, “hai main mar jawan, inhe kissi ki nazar na lag jaye”
And that is exactly what happened! Kissi ki nazar hi lagee hogi.
One day, just 15 minutes into an hour + drive, after having sung along to a new catchy song that goes, “Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday…. Sunday, Monday..”, Hit 95 FM, Akon and I were now trying to match rhythm on “I just wanna love you, love you…all that I can” Youtube tells me this is the ‘clean’ version of the song and the not so clean one replaces ‘love’ with ‘F^&*’. All was well, when suddenly, accidentally I switched the radio to 98.3 Mirchi. There it was “Haule, Haule se hawa lagti hai, Haule haule se dawa lagti hai…” I let the song be and then followed the more beautiful and meaningful “Hai tujhe bhi izaazat” from Life in a Metro.
But NO, we had heard this stuff before, and this was our precious time to catch up on all that’s new on the pop and rock scene. We switched back and there was someone singing “I just wanna be ok, be ok, be ok, be ok, be ok….” The beat was unconventional and catchy for sure, but my desi mind, often under no control of me, decided to have some fun and started translating the song to see what it would be like in Hindi. “Main chahti hoon, main theek hoon, theek hooon, theek hoon, theek hoon.” Next it translated, “Sunday, Monday...” into Hindi until it was in an uncontrollable translation mode. Have you ever tried this? If no, NEVER DO IT!!!!! EVER!!!!
It did not take long to realize the most of the stuff on Hit 95FM when compared to even popular hinidi film music was not exactly in the same genre as say a “Hai Gujarish”. from Ghajini.
When it came to lyrics and beats this stuff was definitely more in line with ‘Lucky Boy’ and ‘No Entry’ (I am not sure why both the songs I picked for comparison were done by Ms. Basu.. maybe food for thought for another post later)!!
It has been 10 days and unfortunately this translation syndrome continues. Hit 95FM in the car is accompanied by my besura hindi translations of their songs and while this definitely makes for some good laughs, no matter how catchy the beat, we just cannot get ourselves to sing to it anymore!
In the last 4 weeks, Popular english music has changed for me forever. I think it is time to admit that I am old and am likely to remain happy arguing over tried and tested U2, Floyd and Norah Jones rather than ‘get with the latest music scene’!
Hindi radio channels are unlikely to have my affiliation given the endless senseless ads (the only radio ad ever worth listening to from an entertainment perspective was lexi pens – strongly urge you to check out the jingle on their website if you are not familiar with it – if you are under 18 adult approval recommended), the more-boring-than-a-corpse callers, the chirpy RJs and the equal focus on ‘lucky boy’ and ‘haule haule’ in terms of music. But I will admit that I am considering investing in some serious amounts of hindi music! God, I did not think this day would ever come!!! But then who would have thought an Indian composer would win the award for originial score in a movie at the Golden Globes!
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Women's History Month, Women's Day, etc etc.. bring it on!!!
I got an email earlier this week saying its Women's History Month. It was one of those cute, light-hearted emails which say there are 3 billion women on this planet who dont look like super models and only 8 do... That the real beauty of a woman lies not in her figure but in her eyes.
As my mind wandered, a long leisurely, unhindered walk, from this email to other related thoughts, it finally landed on some of my interactions with women on business school campuses and to the typical questions that I get asked as a woman who has spent a few more years than them in the corporate world.
“Are there women in senior levels in your firm?” “Does your firm have flexi-hours?” “What is the maternity leave policy in your firm?”
These are typically questions women who are considering joining the corporate world ask. While these questions may not be asked in larger settings, they are definitely probed in smaller, women-only groups. It is heartening to see that women entering the corporate world or already in the corporate world are comfortable asking these questions and acknowledging that these issues are important in their career decisions. In a way, it indicates their comfort with acknowledgement of themselves as women in the male dominated corporate field.
However, allowing a woman to deal with motherhood and family commitments does not necessarily make an organization woman friendly. It is a necessary condition but not sufficient. What determines the women friendliness, in fact at a wider level, diversity friendliness of an organization is its culture.
Today there are many industries and corporate which have a high percentage of women, with reasonable if not equitable, distribution of women across various levels of hierarchy. IT sector, BPO, retail banking are some examples. However, there are still many industries and corporates where women only represent 10% or 20% of the overall population, with very few women at higher levels. There is no one to blame. This is not as much a function of these organizations not hiring enough women as it is a direct outcome of women representing only 20% or lesser population of most engineering and business schools.
Whatever be the cause, the low percentage of women implies that in most of these organizations male behaviors have become dominant behaviors and also expected behaviors. In roles and functions where the measures of success are not easily quantifiable (e.g. sales targets) but are more subjective and behavioral, the way successful men behave becomes the commonly understood benchmark of success. For example, the aggression with which a male colleague presents or argues his points in meetings becomes an indicator of his depth of knowledge or belief in his viewpoint and others who present more softly or listen actively to the groups’ views may become a sign of lack of knowledge. The number of times a male colleague takes his/her client out to dinner and backslaps him may become an indicator of his ability to build strong client relationships and the inability or lack of desire of a woman to do the same an indicator of her lack of ability to bond with clients. This is not intentional and in fact so subtle that it may not even be recognized. But that unfortunately is exactly why it is more dangerous and harder to address. What is not known and unintentional is even harder to fix.
However there are organizations which recognize that men and women are different and hence may behave differently in the same situations, often taking different paths to deal with the same issue but still ending up equally successful. For example, women may present more softly but through their consensual style, may be more effective in dealing with hostile situations. Women may not take clients out for one-on-one dinners in week 1 of the assignment but are willing to open themselves up more and hence potentially build stronger, more personal relationships with clients over a longer time horizon.
Organizations that recognize that women may have a different style but potentially equally effective or even more effective in certain situations, organizations that can actually differentiate between interim behaviours and end results and evaluate people on the latter and not the former are more successful in leveraging and retaining high potential women. Because in these organizations, women are not always trying to be men but are focusing more on their own styles and unique skill sets and hence adding an additional capability dimension to their organization.
This logic applies not only to men and women but diversity of all types. It applies to all situations where the challenge is in integrating people from difference backgrounds in an organization that is dominated by one particular type of people so far. For example integrating people of different nationalities and cultures into an organization; integrating people with diversity in educational backgrounds, integrating people with unconventional career paths. No matter what the nature of diversity, having an open and accepting culture in terms of behaviors and skill sets, being able to see the differences as positive and not negative is key in building diversity in an organsation.
This is certainly easier said than done. Accepting diversity in this manner implies that seniors and team leaders have to be able to differentiate between behaviours that they observe every day and end results that may only happen over time and recognize and appreciate that there may be different behavioural paths to same results. They have to be willing to work with people who have very different work styles and adapt their own leadership style, mentorship style, evaluation style to that rather than expect everyone else to modify themselves to the existing norm. Leveraging diversity implies spending more time observing each person in your team, understanding what they uniquely bring to your team and interacting with him/her in a way to get the best of him/her. It implies having systems in place at the firm level that preserve core values while accepting behavioral differences amongst people.
Seems like hard work, however, it is potentially all worth it when it translates into being able to effectively integrate and hence leverage a much larger talent pool in the organization.
As my mind wandered, a long leisurely, unhindered walk, from this email to other related thoughts, it finally landed on some of my interactions with women on business school campuses and to the typical questions that I get asked as a woman who has spent a few more years than them in the corporate world.
“Are there women in senior levels in your firm?” “Does your firm have flexi-hours?” “What is the maternity leave policy in your firm?”
These are typically questions women who are considering joining the corporate world ask. While these questions may not be asked in larger settings, they are definitely probed in smaller, women-only groups. It is heartening to see that women entering the corporate world or already in the corporate world are comfortable asking these questions and acknowledging that these issues are important in their career decisions. In a way, it indicates their comfort with acknowledgement of themselves as women in the male dominated corporate field.
However, allowing a woman to deal with motherhood and family commitments does not necessarily make an organization woman friendly. It is a necessary condition but not sufficient. What determines the women friendliness, in fact at a wider level, diversity friendliness of an organization is its culture.
Today there are many industries and corporate which have a high percentage of women, with reasonable if not equitable, distribution of women across various levels of hierarchy. IT sector, BPO, retail banking are some examples. However, there are still many industries and corporates where women only represent 10% or 20% of the overall population, with very few women at higher levels. There is no one to blame. This is not as much a function of these organizations not hiring enough women as it is a direct outcome of women representing only 20% or lesser population of most engineering and business schools.
Whatever be the cause, the low percentage of women implies that in most of these organizations male behaviors have become dominant behaviors and also expected behaviors. In roles and functions where the measures of success are not easily quantifiable (e.g. sales targets) but are more subjective and behavioral, the way successful men behave becomes the commonly understood benchmark of success. For example, the aggression with which a male colleague presents or argues his points in meetings becomes an indicator of his depth of knowledge or belief in his viewpoint and others who present more softly or listen actively to the groups’ views may become a sign of lack of knowledge. The number of times a male colleague takes his/her client out to dinner and backslaps him may become an indicator of his ability to build strong client relationships and the inability or lack of desire of a woman to do the same an indicator of her lack of ability to bond with clients. This is not intentional and in fact so subtle that it may not even be recognized. But that unfortunately is exactly why it is more dangerous and harder to address. What is not known and unintentional is even harder to fix.
However there are organizations which recognize that men and women are different and hence may behave differently in the same situations, often taking different paths to deal with the same issue but still ending up equally successful. For example, women may present more softly but through their consensual style, may be more effective in dealing with hostile situations. Women may not take clients out for one-on-one dinners in week 1 of the assignment but are willing to open themselves up more and hence potentially build stronger, more personal relationships with clients over a longer time horizon.
Organizations that recognize that women may have a different style but potentially equally effective or even more effective in certain situations, organizations that can actually differentiate between interim behaviours and end results and evaluate people on the latter and not the former are more successful in leveraging and retaining high potential women. Because in these organizations, women are not always trying to be men but are focusing more on their own styles and unique skill sets and hence adding an additional capability dimension to their organization.
This logic applies not only to men and women but diversity of all types. It applies to all situations where the challenge is in integrating people from difference backgrounds in an organization that is dominated by one particular type of people so far. For example integrating people of different nationalities and cultures into an organization; integrating people with diversity in educational backgrounds, integrating people with unconventional career paths. No matter what the nature of diversity, having an open and accepting culture in terms of behaviors and skill sets, being able to see the differences as positive and not negative is key in building diversity in an organsation.
This is certainly easier said than done. Accepting diversity in this manner implies that seniors and team leaders have to be able to differentiate between behaviours that they observe every day and end results that may only happen over time and recognize and appreciate that there may be different behavioural paths to same results. They have to be willing to work with people who have very different work styles and adapt their own leadership style, mentorship style, evaluation style to that rather than expect everyone else to modify themselves to the existing norm. Leveraging diversity implies spending more time observing each person in your team, understanding what they uniquely bring to your team and interacting with him/her in a way to get the best of him/her. It implies having systems in place at the firm level that preserve core values while accepting behavioral differences amongst people.
Seems like hard work, however, it is potentially all worth it when it translates into being able to effectively integrate and hence leverage a much larger talent pool in the organization.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
A few dashes of magic please… in the pot of primary education?
The narrator of the book Ice Candy Man – an extremely bright nine year old girl from a wealthy family - comments at one point of time in the book that she learnt from many things. From observing the people around her, from walking on the streets, from watching the birds and animals. She also says that even when she was in class, reciting multiplication tables, she did not let that get in the way of her education.
About this time last year, I had 2 very interesting conversations. Juxtaposed against personal reflections, it led to some interesting questions – I say questions because the answers unfortunately are not straightforward and I don’t think I have them.
One of the conversations was with a young, beautiful, intelligent woman. 24 years old. I will call her Poornima. 2 years out of IIT, she had quit her job with a reputed firm and was planning to start shadowing a professional interior designer with the objective of discovering whether interior designing was her true calling. My first reaction was an incredulous what!?! Why?!?! She went on to explain that she realized about 6 months ago that she never wanted to be an engineer. She had been through the 8 year grind of topping in school, studying for JEE, doing engineering physics at IIT and doing an analytics job because that was what she thought she was supposed to do as a bright student. It had all been a way of proving herself to herself and the world. I would say - not an unworthy goal for anyone and especially for someone who has the additional stereotypes linked to her gender thrown in.
The other conversation was with my 14 year old cousin who is in the process of deciding what to do after her class X exams. I asked her if she had made up her mind. She said, “Yes, I want to do non-medical.” Non-medical in my view is not a profession. I probed a little further, “So, you want to be an engineer?” She replied monosyllabically “yes”. My next question was “Why?” Her unconvincing reply was that she did not want to be a doctor like her parents and she did not really mind the life that she saw me and my husband lead (we are both engineers and MBAs) and she was too smart to do arts and commerce and even if she wanted to, her parents will not allow her to do arts. As she said this, I saw another Poornima in the making.
This world is full of Poornimas. Women, maybe many men as well, but especially women who spend their formative and educational years obtaining degrees and becoming a top-end professional in a particular field. However, they also very quickly realize that what they have worked for all their lives and chosen isn't ‘the right one’ or ‘the final one’. The onset of this feeling brings with it over time a lack of passion and perhaps in extreme circumstances even self sabotaging behaviors at the workplace. At that time some of these women start to look around for something more, something creative and something in line with true passions, these true passions often unknown and hard to discover at this stage in life.
Why are there so many Poornimas around? I think there are 2 reasons:
Firstly, our education system does not, at least did not 20 years ago, allow children self discovery. A system which could have and should have taught curiosity, experimentation, and creativity largely focused on discipline and relative competitiveness. Seemingly important then, it is not difficult today to question the relevance of focusing on topping the class by learning where rice grows in India and how to solve trigonometrical problems without understanding their real applications. The creative classes – arts, crafts, sports, music - while considered fun in junior years often made way for revision classes for board exams in senior years. There was often limited time and even more limited access to resources and information outside of school. Thus a majority of the children finished school and stepped into professional courses with no real discovery of themselves, their talents and their passions. The choice of professional courses was driven down to, “I like biology, so I am going to be a doctor” or worse “Both my parents are doctors, and I don't want to be one, so I will take engineering.”
Secondly, even if a child is in touch with his/her passions, often concerns around financial stability and independence, living a good life, being seen as a success by society influence career decisions much more than inherent interests and capabilities. Hence the higher preference for engineering, medicine, CA and civil services amongst young adults who know next to nothing of these professions.
What follows is predictable. An engineering degree from the IITs or other good colleges, an MBBS from a top medicine school, followed by a few years of work, followed by great disillusionment with work and an even greater lack of clarity on where to go. Some are courageous enough to leave their professions and experiment, like Poornima, their end destination being one of frustration or fulfillment, only time will tell. Others linger on somewhat dully in their professions, treating it as a way to spend some time, a way to make some money.
Is Poornima’s journey through IIT, an uninspiring career and finally a path of experimentation, an aberration that needs to be addressed or is it the natural course of self-discovery that should be allowed to flourish? The need for addressal could be from one of two points of view: Is she wasting top notch educational resources which should go to someone who will cherish them and use them longer? Is she wasting her own talents/passions by not discovering and exploring them early enough?
On the first one, one can argue that in a country so short of top quality higher education programs, Poornima wasted a precious seat at IIT and 8 years of her life doing things that she later realized were not her long term calling. Shouldn’t that seat at IIT have gone to someone who was going to make the most of it for a long time to come? Shouldn't there be a bond or something equivalent which states that unless for pressing reasons, you must make full use of your degree for a period of at least 5 years. This is what the Singapore Government does for many students who get scholarships to study in Singapore. However, the flip side of that is that even if it wasn't her long term ambition, Poornima’s journey, what she learnt at IIT and at work from a set of brilliant peers and teachers, her experiences, all of that make her who she is and she and the society will definitely benefit from that one day in one way or the other. Maybe, this is a hard to answer question.
However, the question that is definitely not hard to answer is the other one. Yes, Poornima should have had the opportunity to develop her tastes/skills much earlier. Yes, she should have been helped and encouraged as a child to figure out where her interests lie. Yes, if she had discovered her interest in interior designing, she should have chosen an arts school over an engineering school at 18. Poornima would have been so much more talented and skilled then. Our society would have had another brilliant artist then.
Shouldn't our education system and at least the financially secure upper class of our society at some point of time change - change the way we bring up our children, to allow for a lot more self-discovery, self-expression, a little bit of exploration, some unhurried, non-competitive moments of creativity and curiosity? Shouldn't there be a just a little bit of time for every child to discover his/her own inner magic which keeps him/her spellbound forever?
About this time last year, I had 2 very interesting conversations. Juxtaposed against personal reflections, it led to some interesting questions – I say questions because the answers unfortunately are not straightforward and I don’t think I have them.
One of the conversations was with a young, beautiful, intelligent woman. 24 years old. I will call her Poornima. 2 years out of IIT, she had quit her job with a reputed firm and was planning to start shadowing a professional interior designer with the objective of discovering whether interior designing was her true calling. My first reaction was an incredulous what!?! Why?!?! She went on to explain that she realized about 6 months ago that she never wanted to be an engineer. She had been through the 8 year grind of topping in school, studying for JEE, doing engineering physics at IIT and doing an analytics job because that was what she thought she was supposed to do as a bright student. It had all been a way of proving herself to herself and the world. I would say - not an unworthy goal for anyone and especially for someone who has the additional stereotypes linked to her gender thrown in.
The other conversation was with my 14 year old cousin who is in the process of deciding what to do after her class X exams. I asked her if she had made up her mind. She said, “Yes, I want to do non-medical.” Non-medical in my view is not a profession. I probed a little further, “So, you want to be an engineer?” She replied monosyllabically “yes”. My next question was “Why?” Her unconvincing reply was that she did not want to be a doctor like her parents and she did not really mind the life that she saw me and my husband lead (we are both engineers and MBAs) and she was too smart to do arts and commerce and even if she wanted to, her parents will not allow her to do arts. As she said this, I saw another Poornima in the making.
This world is full of Poornimas. Women, maybe many men as well, but especially women who spend their formative and educational years obtaining degrees and becoming a top-end professional in a particular field. However, they also very quickly realize that what they have worked for all their lives and chosen isn't ‘the right one’ or ‘the final one’. The onset of this feeling brings with it over time a lack of passion and perhaps in extreme circumstances even self sabotaging behaviors at the workplace. At that time some of these women start to look around for something more, something creative and something in line with true passions, these true passions often unknown and hard to discover at this stage in life.
Why are there so many Poornimas around? I think there are 2 reasons:
Firstly, our education system does not, at least did not 20 years ago, allow children self discovery. A system which could have and should have taught curiosity, experimentation, and creativity largely focused on discipline and relative competitiveness. Seemingly important then, it is not difficult today to question the relevance of focusing on topping the class by learning where rice grows in India and how to solve trigonometrical problems without understanding their real applications. The creative classes – arts, crafts, sports, music - while considered fun in junior years often made way for revision classes for board exams in senior years. There was often limited time and even more limited access to resources and information outside of school. Thus a majority of the children finished school and stepped into professional courses with no real discovery of themselves, their talents and their passions. The choice of professional courses was driven down to, “I like biology, so I am going to be a doctor” or worse “Both my parents are doctors, and I don't want to be one, so I will take engineering.”
Secondly, even if a child is in touch with his/her passions, often concerns around financial stability and independence, living a good life, being seen as a success by society influence career decisions much more than inherent interests and capabilities. Hence the higher preference for engineering, medicine, CA and civil services amongst young adults who know next to nothing of these professions.
What follows is predictable. An engineering degree from the IITs or other good colleges, an MBBS from a top medicine school, followed by a few years of work, followed by great disillusionment with work and an even greater lack of clarity on where to go. Some are courageous enough to leave their professions and experiment, like Poornima, their end destination being one of frustration or fulfillment, only time will tell. Others linger on somewhat dully in their professions, treating it as a way to spend some time, a way to make some money.
Is Poornima’s journey through IIT, an uninspiring career and finally a path of experimentation, an aberration that needs to be addressed or is it the natural course of self-discovery that should be allowed to flourish? The need for addressal could be from one of two points of view: Is she wasting top notch educational resources which should go to someone who will cherish them and use them longer? Is she wasting her own talents/passions by not discovering and exploring them early enough?
On the first one, one can argue that in a country so short of top quality higher education programs, Poornima wasted a precious seat at IIT and 8 years of her life doing things that she later realized were not her long term calling. Shouldn’t that seat at IIT have gone to someone who was going to make the most of it for a long time to come? Shouldn't there be a bond or something equivalent which states that unless for pressing reasons, you must make full use of your degree for a period of at least 5 years. This is what the Singapore Government does for many students who get scholarships to study in Singapore. However, the flip side of that is that even if it wasn't her long term ambition, Poornima’s journey, what she learnt at IIT and at work from a set of brilliant peers and teachers, her experiences, all of that make her who she is and she and the society will definitely benefit from that one day in one way or the other. Maybe, this is a hard to answer question.
However, the question that is definitely not hard to answer is the other one. Yes, Poornima should have had the opportunity to develop her tastes/skills much earlier. Yes, she should have been helped and encouraged as a child to figure out where her interests lie. Yes, if she had discovered her interest in interior designing, she should have chosen an arts school over an engineering school at 18. Poornima would have been so much more talented and skilled then. Our society would have had another brilliant artist then.
Shouldn't our education system and at least the financially secure upper class of our society at some point of time change - change the way we bring up our children, to allow for a lot more self-discovery, self-expression, a little bit of exploration, some unhurried, non-competitive moments of creativity and curiosity? Shouldn't there be a just a little bit of time for every child to discover his/her own inner magic which keeps him/her spellbound forever?
Jai Shri Ganesh...
I am guessing I am about 3 years late... thats at least how old the few blogs I read are.
Why now?
It is my resolve to keep things honest on this blog, so here is the truth. I have harboured ambitions to write and be published since I was 16 - not unlike every other person around me with even the smallest of literary bugs in their bonnet. I finally got down to penning some stuff last year during my exotic travels through my 4 month break from work. (Beware - I just said Iam not going to lie, boast, I will for sure!!) My office was nice enough to get one of these writings published in the Mint sometime in March. Here is that one masterpiece: http://www.livemint.com/articles/2008/03/10003309/The-road-less-travelled.html
I am guessing you are beginning to recognise the boasts easily by now.
I am still waiting for them to publish the other. Since then the writing has been, ummmm lets say, infrequent. Now my real writing, unlike this post and like the article, I would say tends to be a little bit on the serious side. I realise now that with serious sounding stuff, it is not easy to get published in the daily print media as a 32 year old mid-management person, even if in a top end international consulting firm(are you tracking? that was boast #3). It is even harder to have enough serious and coherent things to say to write a whole book. And I am only guessing it is very very hard to get people to buy such a book given it is not entertaining reading with a glossy cover and a catchy title! (i wouldnt blame anyone. I would not buy such a book. I am big fan of chick-lit, btw, and buy and read/skim through any such thing written by a 20-something Indian woman/man or a fellow engineer/IIM-ite!!)
But i do continue to have an urge to write; to share and discuss my reflections with others around me. And hence this blog! Hoping this finds more success than the articles and the books. Those can wait another day.
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