Global Gyan

Random Nuggets of Wisdom :-)

Cracked the Scene. So?

My friend from school and I met for dinner after a very long time and got chatting about our other friends. He said, you know nobody from our 1993 batch at high-school has really cracked the scene. Is that really true, I countered, somebody had become a Partner at McKinsey, one co-founded a hedge fund at New York, some others were hot-shot investment bankers in India, Singapore and elsewhere and there were others moving up the corporate ladder. Seemed to me that everybody was doing reasonably well. But nothing spectacular, he said. 

Most of us have been working for about 10-11years, assuming that we spent 5-6 years studying further (BE+MBA, in most cases!), and are nearing our mid-thirties. Not bad, I'd say, if I compared this to what our parents' generation might have achieved. But nobody is a CEO of a big company yet. Or a well-known scientist or a management guru. 

You know, I have no idea what the hedge fund founder's kids' names were or what the Singapore I-banker did beyond I-banking... the occasional Facebook update tells me that most of us have put on weight, added new faces to the family photos and took an annual vacation somewhere. Everybody is happy. So it appears. 

If any of us had become the youngest CEO in the history of our companies, would it have made us happier than what we were now? We would have surely cracked the scene, but would it make our 3 or 5-year old kids happier? As CEOs, we might even install Telepresence at home, and meet the family face to face when on the road, more often now. Did we need the additional responsibility of being a CEO just when the responsibility as a parent was beginning to peak? 

Is it really progress (or cracking the scene?) if the envelope of a professional career is shrunk rapidly? Earlier CEOs were typically 50-year olds, now its passe to reach the top in the 40's and the target is to get there before the 40th birthday. So during the most productive years, all attention is focused on professional excellence and "success", with the hope that one can retire early and then enjoy life. But it is difficult to go trekking at the age of 45 when you are under medication for diabetes and hypertension. It is difficult to lift your fifteen year old child and fling her in the air while playing in the garden. So we cracked the scene at work but what about life, in general?

Anaggh Desai tweeted today, "Isn't it surprising that only Head Honchos talk and manage to practice Work - Life Balance?" I believe that though Head Honchos talk a lot about Work-Life Balance (WLB), most don't really practise it. There are very few who have the aptitude as well as an environment conducive to WLB. Balance is usually a euphemism for compromise; and when Head Honchos compromise between Work and Life, it is not difficult to guess which direction the scale typically tilts. 

I read somewhere, very long ago that the best way to plan one's life's goals was to write your own obituary. What would you like your near and dear, at home and at work, to think of you when you are no longer around? What are the first things that you want others to say about you? 

Are our actions today helping us achieve that "end-goal"?

3 Idiots: Dreams and Reality

NOTE: This is an update to my previous post on 3 Idiots. This one, after seeing the movie today.

 

Follow your dreams. 

That's the key message of 3I (and countless other stories)... and obviously, there's nothing wrong with that message.

But what if you cannot follow your dreams. Circumstances don't let you. What does one do? There are few in this world who are like Rancho (not Aamir Khan, mind you) - inherently brilliant, good-natured and attractive - who are also provided the opportunity to follow their dreams. Remember, it is Mr. Shyamaldas Chanjad who sees Rancho through school and college for his own selfish motive. And unlike Raju Rastogi, Rancho does not have a family of three, surviving on Rs 2500 per month, hoping that their son will get a job and sustain the family's livelihood. 

Every dream clashes with reality, in some way, else it wouldn't be a "dream". Everyone has to make choices, day in and day out, about balancing the two. And given the ephemeral nature of dreams, they can change from time to time, just like reality will. Are we awake to such shifts, are we flexible to adapt to circumstances?

The flaw with 3I (amongst many others that I will not get into here because this is not a movie review) is that it seeks to use a broad brush in favour of the dream-way. With Aamir-can-do-no-wrong-Khan in the lead, all others are reduced to being caricatures. And eventually, all of them bow to the only way of the only master. 

Jahapanaah, Tussi Great Ho!

 

PS: I was shocked at the 'pissing on a live wire' episodes, presented as cool stunts! This used to be a popular ragging sequence in medical colleges, with very dangerous consequences. I just hope that some stupid kids don't try this out for fun!

3 Idiots: Yahaan ka system hi hai kharab!

I haven't seen 3 Idiots yet... but I have read Sahil's review here to get a good sense of what the movie is about.

I will probably watch it soon because it is the movie of 2009/10 and it's supposed to be a well-made movie... I loved Lage Raho Munnabhai and that's enough reason to watch the next Raju Hirani movie.

But I will go into the movie with a prejudice: I don't agree with the "message" that the education system is completely screwed up. That "formal" learning systems or even learning by rote are to be completely discarded. That our educators/professors/teachers are caricatures to be made fun of. That just creativity, without the rigour of analysis, can solve all problems. 

I will not deny that our education system needs a major overhaul. We need to get more practical and more up-to-date. But that does not mean we kill the system itself. Remember, it is the same system that has produced whatever it has till now. It is the same system that has ensured that India grew at 8% this year when most "developed" countries were reeling with recession. It is the same system that is slowly leading to the flattening of the population pyramid. 

Yes, the ranking system forces unhealthy competitive behaviour amongst children and we need to find ways to make "selection" more rounded and not just limited to "exam results". But, at the end of the day, can we get away from the fact that there will be "selection"? Humans are what they are because of natural selection. We have chosen capitalism as our way of life; to wish that everyone be alike is just a wish.

My daughter is just learning her 2-times table. She often forgets what she learnt "by rote"... but her learning process also taught her that she can add two to the previous answer to get the next one. And so on for the 3-times and 4-times tables. So she is using some creativity to get to the answer when she is stuck. Eventually, it won't matter whether she knows 4X9=36 by rote or by a creative deduction of the answer. She will know it. And she needs to know it. That's the problem with formal education... it is a somewhat painful process when we go through it and it is easy to discredit what we have learnt. But if we hadn't learnt many of those things, where would we be today? 

What the system lacks is the flexibility for people to find their interest areas and to be able to customize their higher education in a way that suits their interests. We are stuck with rigid definitions of education options: Science, Commerce or Arts after the 10th; Engineering, Computers, Commerce, Science or Arts after the 12th... Why not a mix of them? Why can't an Engineering major do a bit of Arts and Commerce to develop other perspectives? Or the other way around...

The problem that I have with these movies (TZP, 3I, MB-MBBS) is that the studious are caricatured as nerds and the creative/dreamy types as studs. The teachers have to be of the worst category possible, except of course if Aamir is the teacher himself. The world needs the engineers, accountants, scientists, managers or other nerdy types as much as it needs the poets, photographers, artists, singers or the filmy types. Remember, the smart alec had the opportunity to come up with the fundoo "pencil, not pen" choice only because several brilliant mathematicians, scientists and engineers at NASA applied a lot of theorems, equations, algebra, design, etc. to build a craft that would take humans to space.

Tomorrow, I will surely enjoy 3 Idiots and all the funny / senti moments and the twists that are promised in the movie. But on Monday, I will also insist that my six-year old learn her 2 to 5 tables by rote. 

Business of Education

Why isn't there a national chain of K12 schools in India? In fact, why aren't there many?

I understand that education in India is for non-profit only but is there even a debate on the topic? And I can't believe that all the politicians who have set up schools in their names have been done out of only good intentions!!

When a manufacturing major decides to set up a mega-plant, it asks the Government for mines and power and other essential raw materials. They look for vertical integration to protect their long term interests. Then why are IT and BPO majors depending purely on Government action to provide them their essential 'raw material'? Every year they are hiring tens of thousands each, yet they have no control over the quality or mindset of the people they employ. No wonder they have to invest in almost recreating their education. The Knowledge Economy is predicated on India churning out sufficient numbers of well qualified youngsters. Note we are not just talking of call center execs or software code writers; the opportunity is in design, animation, law, financial analysis, research, education, management.... almost endless, if only we had the right talent. After years of suffering whimsical and incompetent people, the HRD ministry seems to now have a leader who appears to have his heart and mind in the right place. But can we let India's future: Vision 2020 and beyond, be left to the luck of the political draw?

I hate School on Saturdays!

For my daughter, that is. Her school has been functioning on Saturdays too, for the last 3 weeks and will do so for the next three, to make up for the days lost last month due to the Swine Flu scare. I can understand it if the higher classes were asked to catch up on lost tutoring because they may have external / Board exams in a few months' time. But what is the urgency for kindergarten and primary students to "make up" 6-8 lost days! Making them go to school 6 days in the week is quite painful, both for the kids (and the parents!).

Many of us who are used to a 5-day week find it very difficult and tiring when we have to sometimes work the weekends. Imagine, six-year olds having to do 6 consecutive 6-day weeks: not just school but also homework during all the days! Are we and our schools pushing our children too much, even before the know it, into a never-ending race to achieve more? Just to get closer and closer to nervous break-downs and cardiac ailments, perhaps at a record-breaking under-thirty age... My daughter is not yet complaining, but she doesn't yet know what it will be like in twenty-odd years, if this were to continue!

English is a Funny Language!

My 6-yr old daughter is facing the biggest challenge of her life (so far...): trying to figure out how English words are spelt! English might be the default, global language and all that, but it faces a major disadvantage: it's got the funniest spelling system that can fox the most diligent of learners. Since most of the English words are actually derived from various other languages, Latin, Greek, etc., we end up with almost crazy spellings, replete with silent vowels and consonants!

My daughter just doesn't like learning spellings by rote... she tries to derive the spelling based on how it sounds. Which is how any logical brain must work. So she wrote "beautiful" as "butiful"... unfortunately, English is not a phonetic language, unlike, say, the Indian languages. Words don't spell as they sound. So, you need to "learn" the spellings of words... (this has of course spawned an industry in itself and a national pastime in the US called Spelling Bee)...

Most of us older people who have the excuse of character limit of an SMS or a Twitter message (or actually, sheer laziness!) have created our own version of English that is largely phonetic. All of us have turned on SpellCheck in our word processors and mail programs and don't have a real need to remember spellings. Voice to text conversion software is taking away the need for us to even type or write. 

But, our kids have to learn, by heart, in an unnatural manner, spellings of words that sound very different from how they are taught to pronounce them.

As we heard in Namak Halaal, English is a very funny language!