Thursday, May 15, 2008
Congratulations to People Dept and thanks to individual effort of Shivlee Aggarwal.I hope that we will make this a useful forum to ensure that our Intellectual vitality is well nourished. To start the dialog's here is an excerpt from a mail I received from my friend in US who is a very senior management person. I would love to see your thoughts on the questions asked by the gentlemen to me?
Regards
Ajay
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"I am a frequent visitor to India. On my last trip, I was struck by the dramatic contrasts between people and places that exist side by side.
In the cities, I saw a longing for extreme opulence -- countless ads with rich people living lavish lives -- next to the reality of extreme poverty -- countless shanties with poor people living harsh lives.
In the colleges, I saw a longing for advanced education -- and the justified pride that comes with a degree from IIT or ISB -- next to a longing for wisdom -- with the justified pride that comes from being heir to a centuries-old quest for knowledge about life that is so deeply ingrained here.
In the faces of professionals, I saw the new West -- focused on money, constantly working, leaving their extended families, doing whatever it takes to get ahead, eating meat, and drinking wine. In the faces of worshipers at the temple, I saw the old East –--focused on life, staying with their extended families, doing whatever it takes to stay alive, eating vegetables, and drinking tea.
With gain comes loss. With moving forward comes going backward.
There are obvious benefits that come with "progress" -- advanced education is a blessing, poverty is painful, and material possessions certainly make life more comfortable.
There are also obvious costs.
I don’t have answers, just questions:
1. What is being gained in the "new" India? What is being lost?
2. How can today’s Indian professionals achieve the material success of the West without losing the wisdom of the East?
What is your experience of professionals from the West? What can you learn from them?
As always, any thoughts or reflections are appreciated.
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3 comments:
First of all thanks for bringing such interesting questions in front of us.
Honestly, I don't know of others, but I have never though about my country since the day I got my first job and I also know that its a big shame on me because a frequent visitor of India can raise these questions but I living in India have never though about this.
I will only be giving excuse of the work load but in heart of heart its true that I never though in that direction, so i will not give any excuses, rather try to answer the questions in short and to the point:
1. What is being gained in the "new" India? What is being lost?
Ans: I think we are gaining wealth, but we are loosing our cultural values which I think is the first sign of declining culture.
2. How can today’s Indian professionals achieve the material success of the West without losing the wisdom of the East?
Ans: Indian society has always been adaptive to foreign changes, So I feel that it will not be possible to achieve material success without loosing the wisdom of east, but certainly the effect can me minimized by simply focusing on the right/good areas from west e.g. to gain education, update to latest technology, work ethics/culture and simply avoid their personal culture to be mixed with ours.
3. What is your experience of professionals from the West? What can you learn from them?
Ans: It has been a great experience to work with offshore client, personally I have learned a lot from them,They are very passionate about their work, they need perfection is all that is being done, they know the value of money they spend, and above all else they know the value of time, which in India we have a lot:)
Cheers:
www.smartdatainc.net
its not excatly true. India is not ONLY about proverty and poor people, but its lot and lot more than that....depends on how ones sees it. Thats why, its rightly said " Beauty lies in the eyes of beholder"
Indians have great longings to excel and that is the whole reasons we have great acheievments in whatever we do from science to sports to astronomy..You name it and we excel in it therefore lets be proud of it instead of feeling bad on fingers point of "frequent visitor of India".
New India has achieved a lot of education, good jobs, good salary, good living etc. One can only lost to materialistic things, if one does not have deep roots. I totally believe in this.
Indians are like waters, taking the same shape and color in whatever utensil its kept. So I think we can easily adapt to western culture for good things which will be beneficial to us, as an individual and our society too, and ignore the things which we cannot take on for long. One must be intelligent enough to differentiate between Good and Bad.
Professionals from West do appreciate our hard work and our commitments towards work, maybe thats the reason Outsourcing is so popular here :)
My personal experience says, that they too are human beings on Earth, doesn't matter from which part of the globe they come from.
Views shared on this platform are solely my viewpoint to this Comment posted and nothing personal to anybody as such
Good Day !!
www.smartdatainc.net
There are other factors a part from hard work, it is not like India is only hard working country.
When it comes to outsourcing , especially software outsourcing, number of key factors come to play.
We have adapted ourselves very well in accordance to the highly volatile IT environment. Question is are maintaining the pace ?
Few days back I was reading an article with a focus on " should .net & php be taught in schools in US ? "
Can we think towards this level ? Such things need to be passed to high levels - universities & colleges where our young future engineers are groomed.
And as far as culture is concerned Indian culture is so versatile, you will find yourself engulfed in it. In my opinion once u are India, you get entangled in its rich culture in one way or the other ;) smartData Enterprises
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