Saturday, January 14, 2006

The India awakening

Almost finishing up on a college tour to Bangkok, the guys find time for a corner table chat at bangkok's China Town over dinner.

The chat begins.

Jas: "Yaar, whatta place.. I think after college I shouldn't live in India.. We should live in places like this, or UK or Australia. Such developed, clean places, less people, and good climate, yaar.. its so better after being in India. Kya kahte ho."

Preethi: "may be.. "
"Raj what do you think.. when will India become so good like this place bangkok."

Raj: "Firstly, India is not too bad a place like we Indians are making it to be.. We just get so disinterested, so often about our country, that we ignore that its only us Indians who can make our country better. :o)

"We can't actually compare India with the development of any other country I think. because India is a mixture, of people, of languages, of culture, and that too not because of foreign immigrants but by the very citizens of the country.

"People are different here and that is how we formed up into a country. Also India is over populated, and population determines how people live...the more the population in a place, the more resources it consumes, and it develops very slow.

"Further, we are a tropical country, the equator running right through the middle of the country, so we can't really do anything about our sunny temperatures compared to climates of America, or Britain.

"But one interesting fact is, India is economically better than Thailand or Bangkok, and even Japan. We do look bad in our infrastructure compared to these countries, though we are actually economically bigger. Do you know that a japanese yen is only 38 paise in Indian currency. So we have more money, but we aren't using it properly.

Mark: "Yea, most of Indians are middle-class citizens, and middle-class are so conservative about money.. its all in bank savings, or in lockers as gold jewels, or in foreign countries for better multiplicity."

Mano: "Then what should India concentrate on actually.. can there be a step-by-step development."

Mark: "India needs to improve its services in all fields.. not just one place, that is the problem."

Raj: "Right now we are doing it in software alone.. and that too for foreign projects alone I would say."

"India needs to have well-paid and highly-paid teachers, hospital staff who are not doctors, and the likes of ground-level labour who are in the service sector.

"Internal Services is the mantra for development and building. Because when you service well, people get motivated and inspired to be good like you, or, to do better than you.

"For example, when a teacher brings a model of a brain and shows the left, right lobes and things, the student gets motivated to know more about the brain its functions, and sometimes this small thing creates an urge in the student which gets him interested into medicine or similar fields.

"Right now, we have teachers in schools and colleges, but most of them are carelessly recruited as fillers for a vacant position. The principles of recruitment like 'right person .. for the right job' are not kept in mind on these positions.

"Teaching profession is seen as a less important profession in many schools and colleges, except a very few reputed ones. And the reason is because not much good skilled labour opt for this position.. which is again rooted in the fact that teaching is a less attractive option compared to those high-paid technology jobs.

"These days, teachers and proffessors are trying hard to ignore the fact that their student gets a starting salary close to or greater than the teacher's current salary, when the student leaves. And that too, the teacher would have got to the current salary only after atleast 3 yrs of teaching experience.

Preethi: "What do you think is a good payscale for a good teacher at school and then in college."

Raj: "I would say a payscale of around 50,000 to 1,00,000 rupees or 1000-2000$ per month is a nominal amount for a good teacher at college.

"And, a school is actually not less important than a college, or niether is a kindergarden less important than high-school. All stages of a growing person are important, and so we should the same scale to good school teachers also.

"Of course, doing this would not change everything. The teacher should be the first one who needs to be motivated to learn...so that he can teach better and motivate his students. A higher pay-scale is only a starting point and an interest driver for the teachers.

"If there are NOT such high paid teachers in a school or college, then I think that place hasn't really understood the value behind education....especially good education.

"Good education can do wonders.. "

"If a good speech by a good manager can do the first step in driving his team to work better and increase efficiency, then why aren't we seeing the same thing at schools and colleges. After all, schools and colleges are also at the bottom-line having the same aspects of work and ethics like a business does...though education institutes aren't best referred by the word 'businesses'.

Mark: "Yes, like Raj says, if we take care of today's teachers, they will take care of tommorrow's humans who will propogate the idea of development and that's the way development can emerge and happen."

Raj: "Exactly."

Mano: "Another thing that we should work on is the present. and the near future. There should be awareness among people to have a responsibility towards their environment, and very importantly, themselves.

"I mean, most people these days aren't first bothered about themself or their future, they make their huts in garbage dumping grounds or inside dry canals which are passage ways when their is a flood. "

Preethi: "Yea, people are not serious about themselves these days. Thye eat unhealthy and irregular, just because they lack the vision to see a problem with their future health, and fitness."

Jas: "Yea, blame it again on education, all through, we kind of have a feeling that these words 'vision', 'forecast', 'future', etc., are only for essays on business development.. whereas its important we visionize a future for 'us', our living space, our lifestyle etc., and work towards that."

Raj: "Yes.. But I strongly disagree about blaming something or somebody. Most often I hear the same things.. either someone blames something for the bad state of the place, or just says "love the place.. or leave the place.. don't complain". That's not going to help.

"Even today, even with well educated people, there are not much awareness towards the future of the country. For example, parents only think about their child's higher studies, or marriage expensese when they think of the child's future.. but not many think like 'my child should live in a better environment, in a better country when he grows up .. or things like that'

Jas: "Wow.. that's a great thought... but too good a future thought for an Indian parent given the things he can control about the country's growth."

Raj: "Why not !!

"What's a country.. its not a marked area of land that you call a country.. its the people living in that area that form the country, the people's economy that makes the country's economy, and so on.

Mark: "yea.. if the people develop, the country develops.. and each person only has to develop himself, his career, his surroundings, not that he has to plan development for the whole, big country."

Preethi: "Correct. and that's possible right. Like you said, just that we have all got to wake up to this and live our life responsibly."

Raj: "Yes. not just earning money, not just saving money for future.. but also take up small small responsibilities about the surroundings like, call the police if there's problem in your locality..rather than going indoors and peeping out of the window and watching the crime next door."

"...like questioning your city authorities when you see a bump in the road. Imagine if atleast 10% of people using a bad road in India, made just a 1min complaint call to the local authorities about the bad road, there would be enough calls that the authorities would be on their toes to correct the problem.

"Today, we are just ignoring all our responsibilities, tolerating too many small things that happen around us...that the whole number of small things turns out to be huge huge number of problems with the country and our attitude itself.

Preethi: "Exactly. we need to wake up. have awareness. and educate the future with the best possible resources, how much ever it costs or whatever it takes."

Raj: "yea. but but things won't happen like the press of a button, because its a huge huge population to wake up, even if 10% of Indians have to wake up .. so we have to patiently, but optimistically commit our best efforts to make it happen.

"And I personally feel, Indians are good at taking responsibilities, and so just like us discussing it here, many more people are, and India is waking up.