The Dravidian Divide

As I have remarked before, India is not a country, it is a continent. No other country in the world comes remotely close to us, in terms of diversity in culture, language, religion, ethnicity and mentality. It is indeed a miracle that India continues to exist as a unified entity, in spite of the myriad incongruences amidst it's populace. Any other country with so many divergences, would have broken into smaller fragments long time back. Perhaps it is the inherently non-aggressive nature of most Indians [I], along with the culture of assimilating all disparities, that comes to India's rescue here.

Though India is a land of a billion contradictions, two of the biggest bones of contention over the ages, have been the Hindu-Muslim divide, and the North-South polarisation. While the first topic is a lot more volatile in nature; evoking strong emotions consistently, the second one runs like an under-current; a cold-war between Indians belonging to the north and south of the Deccan. I have pondered a little on the first topic previously [II], some first hand experiences off late, have made me seriously think over the second issue.

Regular readers of this blog would know that I have been "onsite" for the last few months. And any person working in the Indian IT industry would tell you that the vast majority of Indian IT professionals in the US are South Indians. Perhaps the fact that most Indian IT companies have major bases in the south of the country, has something to do with this. While all my 30 odd colleagues here are wonderful and friendly people, I cannot help but feel like an odd-man-out, being the only non-Tamilian in the lot. Not only is it a tad frustrating to share the same space with a large group of people, all of whom internally speak a language you do not understand a word of, it is also kind of strange to think that you have to resort to a foreign language, to communicate with your own countrymen!!

Non-south indians are generally paranoid[III] that they will find communicating with locals difficult, when they visit the south of the country; with some even going to the extent of claiming that South Indians refuse to respond in Hindi, even if they know how to. Some even claim that South Indians have never accepted Hindi as a national language, and believe that their languages and culture are superior. A non-resident-tamilian colleague mentions that, even though he is a Tamilian himself, he faces problems dealing with local Tamils in Chennai, just because he does not look like an average Tamilian.

At the same time, some of my Tamil colleagues have shown me the opposite side of the coin; about people in North India not being very cooperative with them, on account of the fact that they do not speak Hindi. A section of the South believes that North India has not opened it's arms to the South as freely as it should.

I, for one, think that we, at times, get carried away with our prejudices, and attribute deep rooted meanings to simple incidents. An outsider will always find it difficult adjusting with the local population, anywhere in the world. India is no different. A non-resident-marathi friend of mine recalls instances about how traffic police in Maharashra, tend to be stricter with non-marathi speaking offenders; while another non-bengali friend working in Kolkata, laments that Bengalies prefer to promote other bengalies, rather than people from other corners of the country. Auto-rickshaws in Delhi try to cheat non-locals. People from the north-east of the country feel that they have not been included into the mainstream. The list is endless.

The North South divide is no different.

Regionalism is present in every part of the country. It would be wrong to project it as a question of North vs. South. It is perhaps the fact that Dravidian languages are so linguistically distant to any North Indian dialect, that make understanding, and hence adapting to each other so much more difficult, that is the reason for the greater distance between the North and the South. While a Punjabi might understand bits of Bengali, Marathi or Gujrati, he can never understand a word of Kannada, Tamil or Telugu by default.

We Indians are privileged to live in a country rich with such diversity in languages and traditions. We ought to try our best to learn from Indians coming from other parts of the country, and not distance ourselves from them. Every Punjabi should be willing to learn a word or two of Tamil, and every Tamilian should be ready to teach it. It is the duty of every Indian, to make a person from another part of the country feel at home, rather than treat him like an alien.

We cannot afford to be ignorant. After all, we have a billion things to learn.

I've Got Mail

26th August 2004 was a big day in my live. It was the day I opened my 1st GMail account :-)

GMail was launched on the 1st of April that year, As part of a fantastic promotion strategy, GMail was not open to all net-izans of the world, but only to a select few who received invites from existing GMail account holders. This generated unprecedented curiously, with everyone itching to have a 1GB mailbox, powered with Google’s unparalleled search capabilities, and a host of other features no other e-mail provider had ever dreamt of. By the beginning of August, some of my batchmates at B-school had acquired GMail ids, and other net-crazy students like me were bugging them incessantly, asking for GMail invites. I was personally interested in grabbing a GMail account as early as possible, as I wanted to possess the id "My first name"@gmail.com . But unfortunately, that was not to be. By the time I eventually got an invite from a batchmate, this id had been taken.

Once I had my GMail id, I was completely hooked to it. The interface, the speed, the search capability, the labels, everything was truly extra-ordinary. Soon, I embarked on a large scale migration from all my existing email accounts to GMail; sending my GMail id to all contacts, exporting all address books to GMail, changing the subscription for most of my Yahoo Groups to GMail etc. etc. Very soon, as the avalanche of Arbit Choudhury Fan Mails started descending on my GMail box, I realized that shifting to GMail was indeed a great idea, since archiving hundreds of fan mails would have been impossible in any other mailbox, given the fact that most other providers were only offering 5-10MB space at the time.

I still remember some of my friends having initial apprehensions about GMail, worrying about the fact that GMail would “read” their personal mails for placing “relevant text ads” beside the messages. GMail enthusiasts like me disregarded such notions as trivial trepidations of technology laggards. Any radically new concept always attracts its shares of skepticism, and GMail was no different.

Over the last 3 years, GMail has virtually reached the pedestal of the best e-mail service in the world. Though Yahoo Mail supposedly has more accounts, I believe this is due to the fact that it has been around for a considerably longer time than GMail. Apart from a few old timers who have been using legacy email services like Yahoo Mail and Hotmail for years, and a few others who have deep rooted apprehensions our the privacy of their mails, GMail has become the pre-eminent mail service of the times, liked by one and all. But like most other Google products, GMail too attracts it’s fair share of controversy, which I guess is due to the radically different way in which they go about doing their stuff at Google, as compared to their conventional counterparts.

In spite of it’s enormous popularity, very few people use GMail efficiently. Many people use GMail as an e-mail attic, dumping all their low importance mails in the GMail-box. Many others, even though they use GMail regularly, do not know how “Labels” work, and use labels just like they use “Folders” in other mailboxes. And then there are those who just don’t know how to organize their GMail box, and keep thousands of unread mails in their inboxes. This is akin to owning a King Size Mansion, but keeping it in a messy and unkempt state.

Ever since I began using GMail, I have tried to follow a few basic GMail manners, so that I can make more efficient use of my mailbox. These manners might not work for everyone, since each of us like to organize ourselves differently, but give a general idea about GMail etiquette.

1. Only keep those mails in the Inbox that require further action, and archive all other mails. This helps keep the inbox clean and uncluttered, highlighting the current action items, and relegating the rest to the background.

2. Do not archive any mail without a attaching appropriate label(s) to it. If you do so, it might forever get lost amidst thousands of other mails in the "All mail" folder, and you may never be able to track it. If the mail is not significant enough to deserve a full fledge label, use the label "Miscellaneous" :-)

3. Add a filter to all the "faltu" (insignificant) mails you receive from various yahoo groups and other subscriptions, "lebel" them appropriately, and make then "skip inbox", saving your Inbox from thousands of irrelevant “unread” mails.

The danger with keeping an unclean mailbox cluttered with many "faltu" mails is that one can easily miss out on an important mail amidst all the trash.

You can always visit the label periodically and check the mails.

4. If there is a “regular” mailer that you receive that has high importance, create a filter to attach a “Label” to it, but do not add the “skip inbox” condition. You can read the mail in the inbox, and then archive it. Creating a filter to attach a “Label” helps you avoid the repetitive task to attaching a label to a certain category of mails manually every time.

5. Periodically visit the “Sent” mails folder, and attach relevant labels to all the sent items.

6. Periodically peep into the “Spam” folder to check if any important mail has landed up over there. Sometimes, some important mails get filtered by the spam guard and end up in spam folder. Hence, it makes sense to periodically browse through the spam folder to check if any important mail is stuck there. Keep emptying the spam folder at frequent intervals, so that you do not have to browse through too many spam mails at one time.

7. Though not deleting any emails is a core GMail philosophy, it makes sense to delete mails that are of absolutely no present or future use. Having a King Size Mansion does not mean that you never throw out trash, does it? :-)

Many people reading this post might wonder why I am harping on the importance of labels, when you can search and dig out virtually anything in GMail. While searching for a keyword can help you locate all the mails containing the same, all the search results might not be relevant. For example, suppose you have a bank account in ABC bank, and they send you frequent mailers about their offers and your account transactions. If you just search for the keyword “ABC”, you will not only get the mails that came from the bank, but will also end up getting all the mails that you sent or received from other sources, that contained the keyword “ABC”. Locating the mails you received from the bank, will need you to either refine your search (which is difficult since most of us are not aware of the various "query words" that can be used to refine a GMail search), or sift through all the search results manually (which is a tedious and error prone task). This problem gets increasingly magnified as the number of mails containing the keyword increase. Hence, it is always better to organize mails into relevant labels, and then search for the appropriate keyword within the label.

Nikhil recently told me an ingenious technique used by him to organize his GMail. If there is an email which he wants to 'tag' (not label) with certain keywords, he sends a reply in that conversation to himself, with those keywords in it. This helps when one needs to find these emails later based on the 'tags' in addition to the words in that email.

I would like to invite all readers of this post to share some GMail manners they follow, as comments. It would be interesting to know the different ways in which different like to organize their mails.

Please note that the Gmail manners mentioned above should not be confused with Gmail Tools and Tips. A complete list of tips can be found here.

Before you begin to feel that I am a GMail Marketing employee, let am also mention something I don’t like about GMail. :-)

I for one, do not subscribe to their “Search, Don’t Sort” philosophy. At times, one would like to sort emails based on certain criteria, in order to draw certain conclusions. Here is an abstract example. Suppose you remember that a friend of yours sent to an MP3 file containing a beautiful song long time back. But you are either not able to remember the name of the friend, or have too many mails from that friend in your mailbox, and hence cannot locate that particular mail through the GMail search mechanism. If you have a “sort” option, you can sort all the mails in descending order of attachment size, and hence locate the mail containing the MP3 file, as it would be one of the larger mail attachments in your mailbox. While this example might not properly capture the problem I am trying to highlight, I feel it necessary to bring this out as I know a person who refused to shift from Yahoo Mail to GMail, due to the lack of sorting option in GMail.

I have just realized that this is one of the longest blog posts I have ever made. In case my GMail rant has got to your nerves, I end on a lighter note, with this old PJ from an Indian biscuit ad.

Reporter to a male college student:- “What do you think about e-mail?”

Male college student:- “E-mail is good, but fe-male is better !!”

P.S.:- Here is Nikhil's take on GMail Manners

Globe Trotter

Hyderabad
Mumbai
Bangalore
Delhi
Chennai
Nagpur
Bilaspur
Raipur
Chandigarh/Panchkula
Frankfurt
Chicago
Baltimore
Columbia
Hagerstown
Annapolis
Washington
Herndon
Boston
Burlington
Cambridge
Rockport
Jersey City
New York City
Lewes
Atlantic City

4 months, 25 cities, 17 states, 3 countries, 3 continents.
7 airlines, 6 metros, 3 ferries.

American Bhai :-)

Life is sprinkled with numerous tiny anecdotes, which though inconsequential in the larger scheme of things, give one a chance to sit back and smile for a while, and enjoy the occasion.

During a flight from Delhi to Hyderabad in January this year, my neighboring seats were occupied by an Indian Lawyer from Delhi, and an American.

As the flight touched town at the N.T.Ramarao Airport, the delhi-ite remarked “This is my 1st visit to this place. I wonder what the weather would be like over here. Hope it won’t be as bitterly cold as Delhi.”

And the American replied, “You need not worry my friend. Hyderabad is very pleasant this time of the year. The temperature should be around 25-30 degrees Celsius. And it wont be as sticky and humid as Mumbai or Chennai either.”

For someone used to hearing stories about the West’s ignorance about India, seeing a westerner know more about India than another Indian, was a welcome comic relief.

Game of Glorious Uncertainties

Sambit Bal points out in this article in Cricinfo, that the World Cup of Cricket, going on in the West Indies currently, has thrown up a most curious concoction of results.

"Ireland have beaten Bangladesh who have beaten South Africa who have beaten Sri Lanka who have beaten New Zealand who have beaten South Africa. "

West Side Story

The wonder with which a poor man on the street in India looks at the IT revolution sweeping the country was evident in this conversation with an auto-rickshaw driver in Hyderabad a year and half back. Today, I cab driver in the US gave me a perspective from the other side of the field.

“Where do ya wanta go, sir?” asked the African American driver as I entered the cab.

“XXX Inc., 9830, XXX Drive” I replied.

“XXX Inc. Is thaat aa Computa Company?”

“No, but their IT division is based here.”

The guy turns and looks at me.

“Are you Indian or Pakistani?”

“Indian” I reply.

“An awful lotta Indians in America these days. Do all o’ya work on Computa?”

“Well, not all. But quite a few.”

“How come all Indians are good at Computa?”

“Hmm. I guess it is because we have a lot of engineers in India, who quite good at Computer Programming.”

“I donno no Computa. May be I should also start learnin it!”

Mind Your Language

A visit to Chennai is a horrific prospect for most Non-South Indians. Most of them are paranoid about the fact that locals would not understand their language and vice versa. So were myself and my colleagues, when we visited the city earlier this year for an official assignment.

After our 1st day in office, we were supposed to retire to a newly built Guest House for employees. Since none of us was sure of the way to the place, and more importantly, none of us knew a word of Tamil, we asked a Tamilian colleague to accompany us. After going around in circles for over an hour, we decided to ask a man walking on the road, the way to the Guest House. We asked our local colleague to enquire about the Guest House to the guy in Tamil.

"Can you show us the way to Helena Villa?" Our colleague asked in Tamil.

"Bhai mujhe Tamil nahi aati hai. Hindi mein bolo!! (I do not know Tamil. Please speak in Hindi)" was the terse reply he got from the visibly exasperated man.

An avalanche of laughter descended inside our car, as we realised that the poor fellow was on the same boat as us. He too was a Non-South Indian, who had been having a rough time in Chennai, not able to understand Tamil, and got ostensibly agitated when he was spoken to in the local language.

The Blue Billion

During the last two decades of the 20th century, "Family Planning" was a big buzz word in India. The state owned Door-Darshan regularly broadcast public interest messages like "Hum Do, Hamare Do" and "Small Family, Happy Family". Streets were littered with sundry posters showing a family of 3, inside an inverted red triangle. There were endless debates in the print media about the limited success achieved by one of the oldest Family Planning Programmes in the world, and how the nation was hurtling towards a Malthusian Crisis as a result. The Population Explosion in India was regarded as the single biggest deterrent to the country's economic progress.

But such overt population control initiatives are conspicuous by their absence in India today. Door-Darshan no longer beams Family Planning messages incessantly, inverted red triangles no longer decorate the streets, and the print media too seems to have forgotten Thomas Malthus.

What could be the reason for this change in attitude? Is it because the Indian govt. and intelligentsia have, after decades of futile attempts, given up on any hope of reining in the burgeoning populace? Or is it because we now feel that Indian agriculture is developing at a rate good enough to beat a Malthusian crisis?

Or is it because of the realization that India's population is not it's biggest problem, but it's greatest asset in the changing global economic environment? Is it because recent studies have revealed that while other giants like China have an ageing population, a great percentage in India's population is still young, and hence will be able to provide the man-power needed to fuel the service economy in the decades to come?

I am inclined to believe in the second line of thought.