Don't Quit

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
when the road you’re trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest, if you must, but do not quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about,
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don’t give up though the pace seems slow—
You may succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than,
It seems to a faint and faltering man,
Often the struggler has given up,
When he might have captured the victor’s cup,
And he learned too late when the night slipped down,
How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out—
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far,
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit—
It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit.

Don't know who wrote it. Quoted from: http://www.collegegrad.com/jobsearch/Graduation-and-Still-No-Job/Dont-Quit/

A good home or a good road?

At first glance, the answer to the question seems obvious: Would you rather have a nice big house or a smooth pothole-free road? The house, of course!

What with the economic downturn, private sector jobs are drying up. The Indian Governemnt, on the other hand, doesn't seem to be in the least bothered about this development, atleast as far as recruitment is concerned. 

As part of a generation that looked down upon PSU jobs as stodgy file-pushing and intellectually insulting (as compared to the better-paying and challenging private sector jobs), this development raises uncomfortable questions. With campus placements round the corner, three magic words are being bandied around - Sixth Pay Commission: the manna from heaven, the bright spot that makes it look less of a compromise than it actually is, and the plaintive reason for accepting a job in a PSU. (The real reason is: there isn't any other, baby!)

Now, all that money for the hike has to come from somewhere, right? And it doesn't require a genius to see that the governement is not richer this year than last year. Neither will it dare to touch the "Social Sector" budget - yup, the same one for which the CAG has mentioned that the governement has not used upto Rs.33000 crore of funds from international agencies for social development. So that leaves us with the next biggest: the Infrastructure Fund. 

Stop constructing that flyover and let's re-lay this road next year instead of this year. We are the Government. We care for you, the aam aadmi. See how we are paying you more?

I strongly feel that the Pay Commission revision should be made performance-based. The PSU can be measured on a number of parameters: increase in revenue, customer/client feedback, employee satisfaction etc. The appraisal process can be conducted by an independent party and the pay hike will depend on the individual performance. I'm sure my solution is far from paractical and is riddled with problems, but what with the brightest minds joining PSUs today, some might actually end up staying and becoming much-needed change agents.

Hail PSUs! 

Slumdog Millionaire

My first reaction on hearing that this movie has been nominated for 9? 10? Oscars was: "Oh."
Something like what you would say when you looked at the clear sky in the morning but heard the steady drizzle grow into a thundering downpour by 4 in the afternoon. In this case a typical reaction would be to stare out the window at the rain for around 5 minutes and then get back to
whatever it is you were doing. That is precisely what I did.

I don't think it shows India in a bad light or glamourizes poverty. In fact it is a very realistic potrayal of a set of people who have to constantly watch their backs and for whom surviving each day is the biggest challenge.

I also don't think an Indian director could have done justice to this story. Not because Indian directors are not good enough (as is mostly assumed) but because as an Indian, having grown up seeing luxury and poverty across the road from each other, his view would be biased. The view portrayed in the movie looked real because it was objective. It is the view you get when you see it for what it is, without any "baggage". If an Indian was to make a movie on the American life/way of living I'm sure he would do a great job.

I also didn't see what was there for it to merit all those Oscar nominations. I guess that is because we are used to watching Indian movies that are high on drama and emotion. It is well-made, no doubt, but not too different from the mainstream movies in terms of masala.

Sometimes I am tempted to spout a theory about a conspiracy to get the world to talk about India. First Arvind Adiga's "White Tiger" and then this. Remember the theory of how countries which the cosmetics giants view as potential markets win the beauty pageants? I can imagine a similar exercise being conducted to identify how India is different from the rest of the world: so you list all the "Points of Differentiation" and then you see which one can give us competitive advantage. No prizes for guessing what topped this list: poverty and the grit of the people condemned to live with it.

But then this would be a self-destructing hypothesis right? More attention => more business => more development => get richer => eliminate poverty => left with no point of differentiation
As a last word, so long as we are benefiting from it (economically) as a country, I have no objections at all.