IIT’s new social networking

The Internet feels like ‘time-pass’ peanuts served on the train. Only, with Google, there’s no bottom to the bag

Wider Angle | S.Mitra Kalita

At the stroke of midnight, like Cinderella stripped of her gown and glass slippers, students at the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai also lose something that defines their survival: technology itself.

Exactly one year ago, officials at the elite IIT Bombay began restricting the Internet in hostels after fearing high-speed access was impeding socialization, replacing talk with instant messaging, virtual gaming instead of the sweaty, heart-rate-quickening variety. Initially, the “LAN ban”, as it was dubbed, was between 4.30pm and 7pm, and then midnight and 7am. Participation in sports and extracurricular activities had dropped and “when we tried to figure out the cause of this problem, it didn’t take us long to find that these students locked themselves in the confines of their rooms,” Prakash Gopalan, the dean of student affairs at IIT Bombay, said in an interview back then.

The action was greeted with protest and much fear about just how a generation that largely grew up on the Internet would manage.

A year later, a funny thing has happened: it’s working.

While an overnight culture tends to define college life, students report that they are now forced to pick up the phone and call a friend to grab a samosa at the canteen or a beer (off campus, of course). They are discovering physical activities that keep strange hours like them: the squash court open till 2am, for example. And those guys obsessed with Internet games such as Quake, Counter-Strike and Age of Empires must meander towards the chess board and tennis table, open for play 24 hours in the lounge. Even students who download movies and television sitcoms strategize who swipes what off the ‘net’ before midnight—and watch together.

“There’s a noticeable rise in the number of people around,” says Aditya Dharap, 21.

At first, Dharap and his friends decried the ban, pointing to it as part of an overall crackdown on the campus; 80% attendance is now mandatory, the ban on alcohol has been intensified. But then, students realized the institute was not backing down.

“It was getting to the point where we were like, ‘If you need to tell me something, send me an email’,” says Amit Mittal, a management student who wants to start his own business. “The gaming culture is booming, but they are getting people hooked onto computers...and useless programmes.”

Granted, there are annoyances still. Rishi Raj, 21, says every night sees him rushing online at 11.59, scrambling to finish an email or download. But he concedes, “Once you check your emails, the desperation to be on online is pretty much over.”

As we spoke in the lounge of Raj’s hostel No. 7, known as “The Lady of the Lake”, just before 10pm, there were just five people there. “Right now, it’s pretty empty, but people are socializing more after midnight,” he says.

Some other IITs also have modified usage hours in hostels or are considering it; Bombay’s ban is now just midnight to 7am. Gopalan displayed a tad of “I told you so” when I asked for his take. “We were not interested in making a statement with this,” he says. “We were interested in healthier lifestyle.”

But intentional or not, the IIT has made a statement. And its apparently successful experiment is worth relating because Indian youth have not yet gone the way of the Koreans, who actually have camps to help cyberspace addicts kick the habit. Consider that, in Korea, about 20% of the population is under 29. In India, more than half is under the age of 25. Already, in much of middle-class India, it is no exaggeration to say teenagers are glued to their screens in a manner that could be unhealthy or dangerous.

One need not even be a techie to be a victim of this illness. How many times have you been up till 3am, room lit by the glow of the laptop, Googling every search term and school classmate you can think of, following links, scrolling blogs and comments—only to wake up wondering just what the heck happened last night? Our computers have become like “time-pass” peanuts on a train. Only, with Google, there’s no bottom to the bag.

During my visit to IIT Bombay this week, I remained in Hostel No. 7 a few minutes past the curfew of 10 o’clock when women are no longer allowed. Not wanting to break the rules for much longer, I ventured down the road to the computer lab of the School of Management—such labs stay open 24 hours so students always have some access. By midnight, just one woman was there. Outside, I heard the shouts of a play being practised—and then the laughter over the goof-ups.

At 12.48am, as promised, the guys from the hostel sent me a text message: There were now 16 people in the lounge, more than three times the number I had seen a few hours before. They were just “hanging out”, that age-old college pastime. These days, the traditions and foundations that bind us as a society, as a community, might need some prodding to survive.

Good guys of government

The behemoth task before India now is to implement the less tangible aspects of workplace reform: pink slips for non-performance, elimination of redundant jobs, efficiency and innovation and healthy competition

Wider Angle | S.Mitra Kalita

On the day after the Sixth Pay Commission recommended a 40% hike for government employees, I sat with someone who slammed the increase.

“These babus will just line their pockets more,” she said. “Bribe us more to do less.”

The irony here is that this person also happens to own a business—and I know for a fact that she doesn’t quite declare all the money she makes. Actually, very little.

So, who’s worse?

Really, it doesn’t matter. What is important, though, is that we apply the commission’s assessment and make-over for government against the backdrop of a public allegedly incensed by corruption, inefficiency and mediocrity to steer this sinking ship to safety. Indeed, the vessel is overloaded, so losing some weight might not be a bad thing—but there must be a way to hang onto the gems in the process.

“The 1950s and 1960s had this sense of idealism...patriotism...shared values of service to the nation,” said Rajat Narain, explaining why he entered the Indian Administrative Services (IAS) in 1970. “The IAS appealed because it gave the chance to be at the grass roots, interact with the poorest of the poor.”

And so, when Narain joined up, he was still a believer. But in the mid-1980s, as a member of the Uttar Pradesh (UP) cadre, he could no longer go on. Three reasons, he instantly offers when asked, as if he’s gone through the list so many times.

“First, in a state like UP, the political interference was very high. Then in a more general factor, there were too many constraints and so much red tape. Thirdly, one could barely make the two ends meet.”

When he started in 1970, the monthly salary for an IAS officer was Rs400. Narain chuckles as he says the Imperial Civil Service (yes, that is what it stood for) in 1900 paid the same amount to a top-level officer.

“If one wanted to carry on honestly,” he says, “it was no longer possible.”

So in 1984, he left, joining the senior management of a cement plant and becoming CEO. Years later, he started his own textiles export business and became involved in non-profit and volunteer work.

In many ways, the Sixth Pay Commission’s actions this week attempt to keep the Narains around, to keep the good guys in government. Late as they are, the overtures should be welcomed—and those like that friend of mine might want to consider what role they play in a system gone awry.

Instead, the reaction this week has dangerously distanced an ever-prosperous public from its government. One headline dubbed the pay hikes a “babu bonanza” and began the story with the words: “In a naked exercise of rewarding the bureaucracy at the cost of a nation…”

Naively, simplistically, I cling to a fundamental lesson from civics: Our government is a reflection of us. And the world’s biggest democracy is a farce and failure if politics, not people, is defining it.

The behemoth task before India now is to implement the less tangible aspects of workplace reform: pink slips for non-performance, elimination of redundant jobs, efficiency and innovation and healthy competition. Opening senior positions to non-government employees is a start to better work from the lower rungs, whose climb now seems as dependent on the passage of time as work ethic and output..

In the words of one civil servant I met this week, government offices have become a place “where donkeys and horses are treated the same”.

One night this week, when the pay commission was replaced on the evening news by footage of another child stuck in a well, I headed to a government colony for a ground reality check. I met Suresh as he parked his scooter in the garage under his flat.

In 1991, months before the golden summer that would change everything, Suresh graduated from a National Institute of Technology (NIT) with a master’s degree. His father, a civil servant in Hyderabad, insisted his son follow in his footsteps.

Suresh, who declined to give his last name, now works for the Indian Meteorological Institute, earning Rs35,000 monthly. The new increase will up that to Rs45,000. His peers from NIT? “They earn at least Rs1 lakh a month,” he said. “I, meanwhile, live hand-to-mouth.”

“But everyone says people like you can flock to the private sector,” I said. “Why don’t you?”

“My government sector job doesn’t help me in the private sector job,” he said. “It’s all services and not much scope.”

To me, that makes little sense. The pay commission should have borrowed more from the private sector’s playbook: increase investment in employees. Demand accountability. Some might leave, the good ones would see hope—and hang on.

Suresh says it is too late. He already has started telling his son, age 6, that there is no future in government work. We can prove him wrong.

Searching for India’s Obama

I waited and waited for the new dynamism all the world reported Rahul Gandhi would display

Wider Angle | S.Mitra Kalita

I’m a sucker for a good speech.

I remember the 2001 day George W. Bush was inaugurated as US president — but I don’t remember what he said. Rather, I remained glued to the departing Bill Clinton’s every word; they practically pushed him into the plane to get him to leave Washington, and even then, he was still talking.

Over the last few months, the art of oration has taken on a new dimension, thanks to an entrant on the US political scene named Barack Obama whose words penetrate the very bone.

I know. Two years ago last month, two years before he’d become the Democratic nominee for president, Obama was the guest speaker at my younger brother’s college graduation. He said, and I quote, even as I cringe at whittling his words to just these gems: “...we live in a culture that discourages empathy. A culture that too often tells us our principal goal in life is to be rich, thin, young, famous, safe, and entertained.

“...I hope you don’t listen to this. I hope you choose to broaden, and not contract, your ambit of concern. Not because you have an obligation to those who are less fortunate, although you do have that obligation. ...It’s because you have an obligation to yourself. Because our individual salvation depends on collective salvation. And because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you will realize your true potential — and become full-grown...the choice is yours. Will the years pass with barely a whisper from your generation? Or will we look back on this time as the moment where you took a stand and changed the world?”

After the ceremony, I hugged my idealistic baby brother and whispered, “I don’t think that consulting job was for you.” I credit Obama’s speech for giving him the guts to quit a year later and join an education non-profit.

Fast forward to last week, when I found myself following Rahul Gandhi on the campaign trail in Amethi, Uttar Pradesh, his home constituency. I waited and waited for the new dynamism all the world reported he would display. His youth and personable style had led some to dub Gandhi the “Indian Barack Obama”.

He wasn’t.

And then came this week, where for two days, we Indians glued ourselves to Lok Sabha television. And what became evident, amid the theatrics and allegations of corruption and bad governance, is that our politicians are terrible communicators. Definitely with each other (Rahul Gandhi and Manmohan Singh being the most obviously harassed and heckled) but, more importantly, with us.

You might say: It’s all a show anyway. It doesn’t matter. They are just enacting a drama for the cameras. Only the poor vote anyway.

Yet, the poor are the ones who most deserve the direction and inspiration that words can offer. In Gandhi’s case last week, he seemed sincere enough but his self-admitted “plain speaking” style feels of the tenor one would use to give directions to the nearest petrol pump. And the people of Amethi— who want their populist politician to give, give, give — could have used some straight yet supportive talk that motivated hem to seize control of their destiny. They have roads, schools, hospitals, they even have industry. How about a modification of US president John F. Kennedy’s famous challenge: Say, “Ask not what Rahul Gandhi can do for Amethi, but what Amethi can do for Amethi”. You get the drift.

And in his speech this week before Parliament, one oddly lauded in the press, Gandhi should have let his voice rise and roar above the din of protesters. He should not have paused for the umpteenth time and looked to the lovably bumbling Speaker Somnath Chatterjee — and then a lunch break — to save him. A raging Rahul, now that would have sent a message.

Notice, for example, that Lalu Prasad drew no such interruptions. I understood little of what he said (and my colleague who sits next to me insists the railway minister cannot be translated). And why did the House remain attentive as Jammu and Kashmir’s Omar Abdullah raced against a clock to swear never again to align with the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance?

There is a reason that Toastmasters, the non-profit group that educates on public speaking, claims its mission is “Creating Speakers. Creating Leaders.” In Parliament, as in the corporate board room, the way we present our ideas says much about how we lead.

For this government, there is little time left. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who I once encountered and found to be fabulously charming one-on-one but morose and meek before large gatherings, began to show signs of a shift in speech style, or at least substance, as he lashed out at BJP leader L.K. Advani and advised him to get a new astrologer. Let’s hope Singh really rushes reforms and effects change now, the proverbial walk matching the talk. As for the heir to the party? Since Abdullah doesn’t stand a chance, it’s time to start scouting the Toastmasters.

Let’s shoot the messenger

Teens do not attempt suicide because of exams or their parents, a teacher they hated or a subject that perplexed

Wider Angle | S.Mitra Kalita

With board exams largely over and results yet to be declared, I join teenagers and parents in breathing a sigh of relief. No, not over the stress. The cramming, the all-nighters, the way-off-the-syllabus questions? Nope, didn’t even break a sweat.

It’s the headlines I can’t stand.

“Exam system drives kids to suicide,” The Times of India blared.

“Sixth class student commits suicide after failing in exams,” United News of India wire service dutifully informed.

“Under exam pressure, two commit suicide,” from The Indian Express.

With each one, I cringe, wondering just how the media arrived at the conclusion. Interviews with the parents, uncles, neighbours are often cited. Sometimes, there’s a note. Inevitably, reporters quote from it: “I could not let you down,” it usually says. “The pressure was getting to be too much.”

Even when there’s no such note, anonymous police officers are almost always quoted, saying speculative things like, “She was not very good in her studies and could not concentrate.”

One by one, each story breaks your heart because chances are, if the departed made it as far as class X or XII exams, there was a real palpable chance that they could have been “someone”. And yet in death, the details blur in our minds, characterized by sickening details about hanging from fans, dupattas tied every which way, belts and balconies, pills and pesticide.

Enough.

Because the media—yes, that includes me—really need to get one thing straight when it comes to covering suicide, proven time and time again by studies. People generally do not attempt suicide because of exams or their parents, a teacher they hated or a subject that perplexed.

They do so because they are depressed. They might be depressed as a result of aforementioned factors but to blame one alone feels a stretch, irresponsible—and, in the opinion of many scholars, deadly.

In an article titled, Can suicide coverage lead to copycats?, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, former dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, cites the case of suicides in Vienna, Austria, as she calls for more responsible media coverage.

Between 1984 and 1987, journalists in Vienna extensively and graphically reported on a spate of people jumping in front of trains. Suicides increased.

In 1987, after a campaign began to alert reporters to the problem and the amount of reporting dropped, the suicides and failed attempts also fell—by more than 80%.

“Social scientists have long known that suicides increase when media reports of suicide increase, and the same happens when a particular suicide is treated prominently... When a particular method of suicide is described in detail, copycat suicides often follow,” Jamieson writes. “Research suggests that inadvertently romanticizing suicide or idealizing those who take their own lives by portraying suicide as a heroic or romantic act is problematic as well.”

I am the last person to advocate any form of press censorship, self-imposed or otherwise. But given the demand and new diversity in the booming education sector, now is a good time for reporters, schools and police to proceed with care and caution. Jamieson, for example, advises against getting into very gory details, to refrain from turning news reports into “how-to” guides. She also cautions against inferring that the deceased were happy and healthy individuals until they decided to take their lives.

In the flurry of suicides reported last month, the implication seems to be that the only release from India’s repressive exam culture (which itself warrants more coverage than through the lens of suicide) is to kill oneself. To a teenager with suicidal tendencies, the idea dangles as escape.

Only a sick person would think so, you say. Exactly.

Yet, we still blame exams or their poor parents and teachers?

Granted, the system is flawed. “Newspapers are often full of lists of children who have topped board exams,” notes Vandita Dubey, a psychologist. “But no one really puts up lists of children who have excelled at sports or writing or singing.”

Another danger, cautions Rukmini Pillai, who leads a self-help group for families grappling with mental illness, is that the hyped-yet-shallow nature of coverage lends itself to parents missing the true signs of depression versus simple stress.

“They’re highly educated, poorly informed,” she says. “Reasons are dismissed as stress, not depression. When depression is mentioned, it is as though someone with depression has to die.”

News organizations, police officers and schools must examine their approaches to disseminating information on suicide. This quiet, peaceful purgatory between exams and results is a good place to start.

Chennai: the emptiest nest

Some parents have packed up and tried to join their children — struck by the irony of being even lonelier with family intact but in a foreign land

Wider Angle | S.Mitra Kalita

In Chennai, it is the absence of so many that feels so palpable.

This city has long been known for exporting the best and brightest overseas. In India: A Million Mutinies Now, V.S. Naipaul detailed the scholarly roots of Brahmins with a desire to keep learning — even if that led one far away from home; later observers say that a reservations system with fewer seats for upper castes also helped fuel migration. Teenagers taking their class XII exams, the old joke goes, might as well do so in the line leading up to the US embassy.

While such an exodus marks much of India, among Chennai’s elite it often feels like no one stayed back. And so, parents waiting for the children to one day return have given up, converting bungalows into flats, or selling off land and moving into new colonies on the city’s outskirts.

“There’s a generation missing almost,” says Vijayalaxmi Gopalan, 55, who lives in a three-year-old gated community and notes that most of her neighbours and family are in the same predicament. Her two sons have settled in Seattle — and she says it looks like they are there to stay.

But Gopalan, who teaches French and communications, dismisses the idea her children owe her anything: “It’s their future that’s important.”

The void is most apparent at family events, says Iswar Natarajan, 68, whose son also lives in the US. He says, “You go to any function here in this city — any marriage, any social function — you will find only old people. They’ll say, ‘My son is here, in the States or Australia.’”

The void is most apparent at family events, says Iswar Natarajan, 68, whose son also lives in the US. He says, “You go to any function here in this city — any marriage, any social function — you will find only old people. They’ll say, ‘My son is here, in the States or Australia.’”

That’s not to say there aren’t some non-resident Indians returning to work here and an even larger number of young people flocking to Chennai for jobs, from writing code to making cars. “Even from the north,” pronounces Natarajan, as if the unthinkable has happened. He works at RK Swamy BBDO India Pvt. Ltd, the creative agency, and describes his home city as one he doesn’t recognize anymore. Personally and professionally, he sees once-frugal, conservative Chennai consuming. “The younger generation, the attitude has changed. People used to live for the future in Chennai,” he says. “Now they live for the present.”

Still, much of this city remains obsessed with a better future; hoardings and advertisements seem to plug laptops over TV sets, life insurance and engineering courses over swanky new housing developments. On one bus transporting students to the city’s outskirts, the school’s founder is presented as larger than life, painted in a way that seems more fitting for a politician, an actor, even a deity.

Yet, the young and old appear to rarely intersect, and the city’s growing traffic problem feels apt metaphor for how the old and new bump, ensnarl, ultimately dodge. The elderly pass time at temples, family functions, bazaars that inspire sweating alongside shopping. The young fill malls, classrooms, new clubs and lounges, even as they decry Chennai’s early closing times and grumble about how they’d much rather be in Delhi or Mumbai. The two generations literally and figuratively speak different languages.

Which is why the arrangement of Priya Karunakaran and Manmeet Kaur stands out — and offers one solution.

Two years ago, Karunakaran returned from a year abroad with her sons, in the US and Australia. Her husband was “allergic” to the cold and wanted to come out of retirement for a job about eight hours away from Chennai. Kaur, then 23 and a New Delhi native, had gotten a job in Chennai with a great profile and pay — but needed a place to live, preferably safe and near the gurudwara. Through a friend, she heard about Karunakaran and asked if she might consider renting out a room.

Karunakaran is a piece of the old, born in Sri Lanka to Tamil parents, settled in Chennai for decades. Initially, she said no. But she sympathized and relented.

And now, Kaur huddles over a table, pushing idlis made by her landlady. I can’t resist — the idlis and the question: Don’t you want to party, live on your own?

“I begged Aunty to let me live here. She is awesome. She’s the reason I can stay in Chennai.”

They began as roommates of convenience, these victims of the nuclear family gone global, but now they consider themselves lucky — at least they have each other. Even as she loves the company, Karunakaran remains the Tamil mother, fretting over a future that’s not her own. “She misses Delhi so much. Might there be opportunities you know of?”

Yet again, she would be ready to let go. She explains, “For me, it’s always the children’s choice.”

Faraway airports fly by me

New airports bring new dreams, as the folks at Bangalore International Airport Ltd — led by Siemens AG — have asked us to believe

Wider Angle | S.Mitra Kalita

Forget the stress. Forget booking the helicopters. Forget leaving 4 hours before the flight — well, maybe.

Last week, I devised an experiment: a journey from two city centres to their new suburban airports in rush-hour traffic. After all the complaints about congestion, graft, inefficiency and sheer distance, I wanted to see for myself if these new airports and their arrival really represented “India’s astonishing inability to plan for its future and fix its sagging infrastructure,” as The New York Times reported in May.

My first goal on a Thursday morning was simple: to make it to our office on Church Street in Bangalore by 10.30am. I happened to be flying from Chennai, so the flight time was negligible; everyone told me, though, that I should allot at least two or three hours for the drive into central Bangalore. I had had nothing but horrible experiences with the old airport. In the fall of 2005, my then 13-month-old baby and I remained stuck in traffic for an hour on our way and arrived at the airport, drenched in the city’s infamous rain, our sweat, and her tears (possibly some of mine, too). Ironically, around the same time, a news show spent an hour discussing, “Is the Bangalore dream dying?”

No, I bitterly thought. It’s already dead.

But new airports bring new dreams, as the folks at Bangalore International Airport Ltd — led by Siemens AG — have asked us to believe. I arrived at the Chennai airport at 7.05 (for the record, that city-to-airport journey took 35 minutes). The flight left at 8 (on time) and touched down in Bangalore at 8.47. I prepared to be dazzled.

I wasn’t.

First, the skywalk wasn’t working, so we had to deplane from the back onto a bus. There’s nothing like anticipating a brand-new airport and its 21st century ways — and then having to hang onto those straps for dear life and balancing a purse, a laptop and a small suitcase. Somehow, the runway resembled a mall parking lot in the middle of a recession. Empty. Inside, the airport left me underwhelmed only because it felt anonymous, like it could have been in Frankfurt or Chicago. Thankfully I got my bags within a few minutes and hopped into a taxi at 9.15.

The next hour or so was, embarrassingly, a blur because I fell asleep. Mind you, I rarely fall asleep in cars here, given the bumpy roads and honking, but this highway was smooth. Even as we entered the city, a bit after 10, the sudden and constant honking became a strange lullaby and I woke up only to note the time.

I reached the office at 10.27, dazzled by a commute under 90 minutes.

Next up was the trek back to the airport, this time in evening rush hour.

By lunchtime, paranoia set in and I grew antsy to make it for my 8.50pm flight to Hyderabad. Yes, I planned to travel from one allegedly disastrous airport to another. After stalling and three cups of tea, at 6.02, we set off.

The roads, again, jammed. At 6.16, a cow walked by, faster than us. At 6.30, I panicked because we had not even moved a light. Curses ensued.

At 6.32, something miraculous happened. We began cruising (in Bangalore, that means: Go. Stop. Honk. Go. Stop. Progress). The driver assured the next 5km would be tough but the final 30km would take under 30 minutes.

At 7.02, we hit the highway. At 7.12, we pulled up and I grinned. I’ve done it again — under 90 minutes! I should win an award. A woman came up to me to advertise a service where Toyota Innovas outfitted with wireless Internet and entertainment systems can get you to the city centre for Rs300.

Yeah, I’d come here again. But leaving Bangalore, with enough time to browse shops and buy two shirts and dried fruit, beat arriving.

Onto Hyderabad. My flight actually landed early and I practically danced across the air bridge. Fittingly, Indian classical music played, along with colourful figures and plentiful plants greeting me. Helpers seemed everywhere; I almost asked them for advice on marriage, they were so knowledgable. At 9.53, I was escorted into my car rental, loving Hyderabad — until I was asked to fork Rs1,150-plus.

Gulp. For a cab?

I arrived at my hotel in the city centre at 10.57; the car got a little lost, or else we would have been even earlier. Of course, that is not rush hour, so the next day, to truly test these allegedly far-flung airports out, I booked a 7.50pm flight back to Delhi.

We left at 5.07 from Somajiguda in the city. And the familiar rhythm of jerky traffic (but much less honking) began, but by 5.31, we hit a highway — and at 6.04, we arrived. Under an hour. The Padma Shri, I deserve.

City centres, especially urban areas that continue to grow, are no place for airports. These cities and their airport promoters did not adequately plan every detail in time for the opening — but now the facilities seem to be working just fine. It’s time for passengers to quit complaining, embrace the new mode — and hope the takeaway biryani stays warm on the flight home.

Hers was a wonderful life

My grandmother defined family broadly, forced others to think beyond their front gate, stirred them to action

We had a tradition, my grandmother and I. Every few years, during childhood trips to her village of Sadiya on the banks of the Brahmaputra, I would spend the last night with her. She’d scratch my head and my back and mosquito bites. Often, I sobbed, sorrowful over my impending departure.

She was stronger.

And so last week, it seemed only fitting to be there for her last night, along with about 35 other relatives huddled around a bed in my home in Guwahati.

By coincidence or calling, I was there from the beginning of her end. She saw me, who had conned her way into the intensive care unit before visiting hours, and asked if I wanted to sit, have a cup of tea.

A few hours later, she slipped into a coma.

We were told nothing could be done, so we brought her home.

Even as I write this, I feel numb at what it means to lose the only person who so represented my connection to this country in its reality. Like 40% of India, she was illiterate.


Like about half the population, she was married off before 18 (11, in her case). Like nearly two-thirds, she made her living primarily off the land.

And yet, she was one of a kind.

Over the last week, the stories have come tumbling out.

How she threatened the district’s most infamous dacoit, known as Hemen-goonda, with a kerosene lamp at night and called him a dog.

How she got around her illiteracy by lining the girls on the veranda and having them recite their studies to keep each other in check.

How she ensured the household and farm workers always toiled on a full stomach; “that way, they don’t really care if I yell at them”.

How she told my cousins to stop watching the World Wrestling Federation on TV after she learnt, on a trip to America, that it was really all fake.

Deceit, even as entertainment, had no place in her life. I mourn not as much the loss of the person—at 86, she had had a full life— but the loss of a generation that we can never get back.

Their values, however, are something I suspect to which we will, rather must, return.

Just two months ago, when my grandmother fell and broke her arm, I dropped everything and packed my husband, my daughter and a video camera.

As I wrote in a recent column, this tough-as-nails lady grew tender for the first time and thanked me for coming, told me how much my family and my alleged success mean to her.

She spent some time detailing her life’s philosophy, which—given her background and achievement, in spite of it—might hold some secrets for others.

Namely, she was thrifty. She bargained, counted her money every night, reined in extravagance.

Last week, as I rode autos and taxis to get around Guwahati, I could just hear her cringing that the Rs11 bus would have been a much better option.

She defined family broadly, forced others to think beyond their front gate, and in doing so, stirred them to action. She was often the voice called upon to represent civic concerns. In the 1980s, when a politician and singer and artist Bhupen Hazarika came to call, she chastised them for the sorry conditions of roads, schools and health care in Sadiya (as lore goes, she first fed them, then yelled).

By not being educated, she served as the ultimate example of why it matters. During family gatherings, it was often said: “What would have been if she had learnt to read?” The lack of an answer kept her children and grandchildren always reaching for more.

She was a big believer in long-term planning, even for her own death, from heavy gold bangles cut into eight pieces for each of her children to Rs10,000 she donated for the final shradh’s feast to a cream and gold mekhla chador (Assamese two-piece sari) left for my daughter.

When I contacted local newspapers to run her obituary, one editor told me he didn’t think my grandmother met standards; they preferred business leaders, politicians, “people who have made a big difference”, he told me.

“If she were alive,” I retorted, “she’d say that her life might not amount to much, but people like you will serve her dinner in her next life.”

He laughed and relented.

My obituary included these lines: “It was the end of a remarkable journey that began with her birth in the Kamrup village of Gorput to marriage in Baranghati to settlement in Sadiya, where she spent most of her life. In recent years, Mrs Kalita divided her time among her family’s homes scattered across Guwahati. Her heart—and stories—however remained in an India fast disappearing...”

As I wrote, I shed tears of regret. For so many questions and untold stories remained.

Your comments are welcome at widerangle@livemint.com

Failure is key to innovation

India’s pressing need of the hour is, indeed, innovation









Last weekend, I stopped in at my college roommate’s barbecue in New Jersey. Within the first 15 minutes, the reason the US wins, hands down, in the race to innovate became abundantly clear.

A big bowl on the table boasted flat, baked pretzels. The cooler on the deck was stocked with flavoured beers, lime to raspberry. And a trip to the bathroom yielded a special kind of soap that squirts out foam, making unnecessary that laborious task of rubbing dirty hands together.

None were products I had ever seen before — and after checking around, my friends confirmed their recent introduction to the market.

“Are you mocking our hyper-consumerist ways?” one asked me.

“No,” I said. “I am in awe of them. I’ve only been away nine months and every time I come back, it feels different. This is an amazing country.”

Of course, the newness of India also impresses and shocks on a regular basis. But in recent years and certainly in recent months as the US economy has slipped and slumped, concern has been voiced over it losing its competitive edge, particularly when it comes to innovation.

A headline in a research publication at the Georgia Institute of Technology implored, “Wake-up Call for Innovation: Other Countries Make Strides in Science and Technology, Threatening US Competitive Edge.” Last year, innovation guru John Kao published the book Innovation Nation: How America Is Losing Its Innovation Edge, Why It Matters, and What We Can Do to Get It Back. Around the same time, BusinessWeek magazine made it official, laying out the innovation enemies with the headline: “India and China Wise Up to Innovation”.

I have written about innovation before; in a Wider Angle of 3 August, I dismissed it as little more than a buzzword: “…the workplace is becoming wooed by fads and not effectively marrying best practices. …Instead of formalizing innovation, we need to go back to our roots a bit more. Managers should encourage doses of messiness, disorder, chaos, even lots of mistakes — circumstances that lend themselves to more ideating.”

While I still largely agree with that sentiment, my short time in the US this month leads me to believe that India’s pressing need of the hour is, indeed, innovation; research and development conferences are right to promise this will be “The World’s Knowledge Hub of the Future”. But their ability to meet that promise rests on another really vital part of successful innovating, something the US has already mastered: failure.

And this is where the whirlwind of products at my friend’s place becomes important. For the first three decades of my American-born life, I felt like I was part of one big experiment. My school didn’t have windows or walls, since a few studies in the late 1960s advocated “open” classrooms. That didn’t quite work, so the new wings of the 1990s all became traditional classrooms. Soon after, the state of New Jersey embarked on a special lane on the highway for cars with more than two passengers — it made the bus lanes so controversial in Indian cities look like a grand success story. Today, those lanes don’t exist any more. Even products everybody loved and knew, like Coke and Pepsi, constantly saw new introductions: clear, caffeine free, vanilla flavoured, one calorie to none at all.

Now think about your favourite products in India? How many times have they been reinvented? How many times do we admit we misread the market or made a mistake?

In India, the answer is not to innovate by copycatting the West’s inventions. But I fear two things: We are not learning from others’ mistakes, nor our own. In these times of great expansion and growth, rare has become the politician or business leader who ever admits he or she was wrong.

Even as they fear the US losing its competitive edge, experts agree the Americans’ ability to constantly reinvent and rarely leave well enough alone is key. “While India is growing fast, the US remains by the most innovative country, by almost all recognized measures of innovation,” Philip Shapira, professor of innovation, management and policy at the UK-based Manchester Institute of Innovation Research, Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, told me in an email.

Case in point: While googling the background of my new favourite snack — the flat pretzel — I discovered a previous incarnation under a division of Nabisco Foods. Despite a few diehard fans, “Mr. Phipps Pretzel Chips” never really took off, although they did win an award for “best new product” in 1993. The judges lauded the company for being “able to fill an unmet consumer need, leverage consumer perception by generating brand awareness…”

In India, too, plenty of awards exist to innovate. Maybe it’s time to celebrate the losers. As Mr. Phipps ultimately showed, he was just before his time.

Your comments are welcome at widerangle@livemint.com

We’re all in the closet, too

Gay activists have long pointed to the union of Vishnu and Shiva producing a son (known as Ayyappan or Hari-Hara) as proof of the acceptance of homosexual unions in Hinduism









Earlier this week, on the day that three Indian cities held “gay pride parades”, one of my best friends in Delhi flirted with a fellow young man by email, easy banter back and forth.

And then came the question asking exactly what they would do if they were to meet later that evening.

No sex, my friend said. Not so soon.

No thanks, came the sudden reply. Not interested.

The timing struck me as ironic. This friend happens to be staying with me for the next few weeks, and as we discussed, a few nights later, the realities of gay life in India, he scoffed.

“I’ll show you the reality,” he said. “Look here.”

And he logged me into his account on the Indian website of Guys4Men.com, a global matchmaking service with a domain name that sums up its mission. He left the room and allowed me unfettered access to the site hosting thousands of men across India, seeking company, fulfilling desires, even charging money for their services. Many users live double lives, attached to wives and children, mothers and fathers; those not on their own made clear that just as important as sex was a private place to have it. The not so fortunate strategized places to fondle, grope, copulate, in parks and gardens, monuments and metro cars.

“...my charge is 400/- Rs. only,” wrote one. I thought that was a joke. My friend assured me it was a cheap rate.

Most of the other things I read are unprintable here, but overall they exemplified the sexual repression that defines India at its worst. I wondered how many of these people turned up at the parades on Sunday. One woman who did march in New Delhi’s first-ever gay parade told The Washington Post: “Today, young Indians are economically independent — they have access to information and they have their own sexual preferences. They don’t always want to be married off at a young age. This parade is a sign of modernity.”

Yet in reality, we seem nowhere near modernity when it comes to sexuality. Even as I laud parades and non-discriminatory policies at multinational companies, in India’s efforts to leapfrog into acceptance of alternative lifestyles allegedly prevalent in the West, somehow we have forgotten the most important, more universal first step — sexual awareness and liberation. Until that is achieved, those who define themselves as gay — and those who don’t quite define themselves as anything — will remain confined to fantasy and fetish, lost among the lost. It is a most dangerous place, a repression manifested as crudeness.

It wasn’t always this way. Gay activists have long pointed to the union of Vishnu and Shiva producing a son (known as Ayyappan or Hari-Hara) as proof of the acceptance of homosexual unions in Hinduism. And the 15th century Krittivasi Ramayan describes “children of two wombs” born to two women. Once upon a time, men wore earrings and make-up, and spent as much time on their hair as women. While notions changed internally, the arrival of Victorian morality resulted in a true clash of civilizations and attitudes. Stories abound about ways the Brits took “effeminate” men and toughened them up.

And yet, Indian sexuality still carries murky remnants. Truck drivers have sex with each other but we clinically call them men who have sex with men, not homosexuals or gays. New entrants to engineering college hold hands (and then some) in their first weeks away from home. And who doesn’t have an uncle still hanging onto the pink sweater vests and floral shirts, even as they have likely never heard the term “metrosexual”? How to explain this nation moving from the sexually free, explicit and comfortable (or perhaps that’s all nostalgic bunk, too) to this new state of inhibition, admonition and deceit?

Much of modern sexual behaviour is dangerous and the result of a lack of awareness. Sex education is one start, for sure. So, too, is the growth of organizations allowing gay people across urban India to meet each other on non-sexual terms. Not a bad idea, too, for their straight counterparts. Preferably, it would be some place between the park bench and Shaadi.com, one that doesn’t offend but allows safe exploration, most importantly of self.

The same night we dissected his love life, I asked my friend what the solution might be.

“The gay pride parade feels passe in a country where being gay hasn’t even been accepted,” he told me, even as he said he supports the idea. “I think we should jump right into the post-gay movement.” By that, he explained, he means sexual preference not being at the core of one’s identity.

Along the same lines, the penal code criminalizing homosexuality is being rightfully challenged, an unneeded leftover of the colonial era. Now, in the battle for sexual freedom, we might want to be wary of taking the West’s lead once again. Ideally, the parade will lead us down the right path after all — our own.

Your comments are welcome at widerangle@livemint.com