TCS Kochi start layoffs at the Kakkanad office. Sacked employees issued termination slips

Reports are coming in that TCS has issued termination slips to some employees at the TCS Kochi office (at Kakkanad) as part of its recently announced restructuring exercise. TCS had earlier announced that there will be layoffs across India as part of their restructuring. This has nothing to do with the strength of TCS as the leader in IT outsourcing but a strategic move. “Involuntary attrition” is the term used, though it basically means employees get fired.

The number of employees sacked is unclear but has been reported in reputed newspapers like Indian Express.

It is always better to check as sometimes it just turns out to be a rumor.

http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/kerala/Layoff-TCS-Hands-Out-Pink-Slip-to-Employees/2014/12/31/article2595990.ece

Globally, many companies like Microsoft and IBM have done regular restructuring over the past few years.

TCS officially distances itself from the claim that lots of employees are being laid off. According to the article in Money Control yesterday

http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/cnbc-tv18-comments/tcs-allays-layoff-fears-no-pink-slips-for-employees_1263016.html, they refute that any unusual number of layoffs are happening. Apparently 1-1.5% involuntary attrition per year is standard, except that for the size of TCS, that works out to 3000 to 5000 employees.

Kakkanad in Kochi, Kerala, is home to software companies like TCS, CTS and Wipro, while Infosys is located in Trivandrum, which is the capital of Kerala and located 200 Kms away from Cochin.

There is even a Facebook page created called “We are against TCS layoffs” – ostensibly by employees affected by the layoffs.

The reports also include photographs of the termination slips issued to the employees affected by the Layoff.

While TCS is a very large organization that regularly has employees leaving involuntarily, this time the apparent size of layoffs is causing people to get jittery. There are unconfirmed estimates that upto 30 000 employees may eventually be affected by the layoffs across India.

TCS has over 330 000 employees, so even a count of 30 000 employees fired would only come to 10% of the size.

In addition TCS is on course to recruit 50 000 people next year.  It is unclear if the freshers being recruited in 2015 are going to be affected in the restructuring – TCS has said that their hiring plans are on course. Those who have been given offer letters through campus recruitment will be called for training. In previous years, sometimes the freshers who have been offered jobs in IT companies like TCS have been affected by a delay in being called to join.

TCS continues to prepare for more employees to be added to their strength. They have already announced plans for building the worlds biggest corporate training centre in Trivandrum, which is 5 hours drive from Kochi. They are also building a new development centre in Trivandrum at Technopark, which is the oldest and biggest single park in India.

The question on the mind of TCS kochi employees will be “Which projects are affected by the layoffs?”

It is also not clear if the impact is for lower ranked employees or seniors. Reports in the newspapers online versions suggest that many mid senior employees will be targeted. That makes sense from a purely financial perspective, since senior employees enjoy a higher pay and can have a bigger impact on the cost savings in any restructuring exercise.

Additionally , as in the US, companies will learn that lower ranked employees (and lower paid) can perform at close levels to a senior  employee with extensive training.

Other IT employees need not gloat at their peers in TCS, because if the biggest company is setting the trend, other IT companies are bound to follow.

Larger companies like TCS can easily cut costs and improve margins through layoffs, since the employee salaries are a reasonably big component of their overall costs.

The good thing to come out of this is that some of the employees may decide to start companies or startups on their own, particularly if they are experienced. It will also free up a pool of senior employees that Startups can employ. There may be also a slight impact on the overheating of salaries in the market. Companies may find that employees think twice before jumping ship, if they are looking to move to a larger company like TCS, CTS, Infosys or Wipro.

Google translate launches support for malayalam language translation

Google has launched support for malayalam in its ubiquitous translate feature. You can try Google translate malayalam here  – https://translate.google.co.in/ by choosing malayalam from the drop down of the languages.

This means that you can copy paste malayalam into the Google translate tool which is an in browser tool for chrome, firefox, safari etc , and you can then  translate the piece of text provided into a language of choice.

Obviously the most common usage for Malayalam translate would be to convert it into english.

Perhaps it might be useful in Technopark while communicating to clients ? 🙂

The reports coming in from those who tested the translate tool for malayalam was that it was not good. This is not surprising considering malayalam is a fairly complex language and im not sure how many malayalees were available to test it 🙂

If the translate tool for malayalam to english (or vice versa) is bad, then the feature may just lie around till google deadpools it later. The problem is that there isn’t enough business need for a malayalam to english translation. First of all the kerala market is not a hot one that international businesses are going after. Second is that most malayalees understand english too, so the translate option isn’t that much of a need like in German or French where the market is big and english is not understood.

Having said that, Google malayalam translation keyboard is quite often searched for , atleast according to some prompts shown by Google during searches related to these keywords. Perhaps those who are trying to enjoy literature, or want to get their word meanings down pat for any communication, would like to use a service like this.

There are already a plethora of jokes based on the malayalam translations that are spun out by the Google tool. Being malayalees, the first thing they would search for is Google translate malayalam jokes so that they can share it on Facebook or Twitter. It would not be long before a hashtag or facebook page around Google translate jokes takes effect. There are google translate jokes on Mammooty (a famous movie star in Kerala) and on Pinarayi Vijayan (A leader of the communist party in Kerala).

Inspite of the smaller size of the community with regard to Major indian languages, 38 million is still no joke when it comes to a community’s size on a global level. That is already bigger than the population of Canada, more than half of UK and more than 10% of the population of the US. So perhaps with a little more effort, the tool will meet our expectations.

The question would be why is the Google translate tool for malayalam having so many errors in translation and giving the wrong translation for the inputs provided?

The answer is that the tool was largely developed using dictionary words and crowdsourcing from those who know malayalam. So if we malayalees have not provided the right inputs during the crowdsourcing efforts, the tool will obviously come out short when it comes to translating the text.

Some malayalees (and perhaps a handful of foriegners) would be checking up whether this malayalam to english translate tool can be downloaded and installed on their computer so they can use the malayalam virtual keyboard on their system. Right now however, as with other Google translate languages supported, this is a purely online tool within the browser and cannot be downloaded as an installable software.

Lots of people also love to share jokes in malayalam on Whatsapp and facebook. Some malayalees who can’t read malayalam would love to translate these jokes to be able to enjoy it in english. It is still open to debate if the joke will be easy to understand when it is translated from malayalam to english.

While you can’t download the translator, it is still free to use online!

Have fun!

Malayalees comment spam attack New York Times (NYT) facebook pagenews for racist Mangalyaan cartoon caricature

Update – New york times has issued an apology and explanation for the Mangalyaan cartoon which causes the furore.

The NYT apology has been posted on their Facebook page, which bore the brunt of the comment spamming from outraged netizens, mostly malayalees from Kerala.

Their apology posting can be viewed here – https://www.facebook.com/nytimes/posts/10150469260794999?fref=nf

Specifically, the text of the apology is “We apologize to readers who were offended by the choice of images in this cartoon”, and the posting is done by Andrew Rosenthal the Editorial Page Editor. The apology itself is getting quite a bit of traction on Facebook, and some commenters are demanding that the Print edition publish a copy of the apology. This seems unlikely and the matter will be laid to rest in a few days as the outrage peters out.

Malayalees seem to have taken the lead in comment spamming the posts on the the New York Times facebook page – an attack in retaliation for the racist and rude mangalyaan cartoon that the NYT had put up yesterday. Hundreds of comments are flooding the facebook comments section of the NYT FB page, for any new postings that they are putting up. Plenty of the comments are either in english but ‘speak’ malayalam, and some are in the malayalam font. It is likely that non malayalees from other parts of India will soon join up if something is not done. There are 100- 120 million Indians on Facebook.

As a result of the news of the spam attack, many malayalees are joining the action, but are first checking up on what the ‘NYT cow caricature’ or the ‘Mangalyaan nyt cartoon’ is and looking for a link to the cartoon so they can make their own judgement. In short, the mallu online brigade is out in force to let NYT know that they have gone overboard.

The new york times is a venerated newspaper, but it has clearly gone over the line with such a racist commentary on what is arguably a world achievement. What they don’t know is that Malayalees have one of the most widely read news sites in the world ‘ Manoramaonline’ amongst many others – and they love em their news. NYT will now have to get a taste of the activist mallu community and their acerbic tongue. God save the NYT intern who has to find out what the comments are supposed to say. Though its likely the NYT has their fair share of malayalees on board who can helpfully translate the comments for them!

The caricature on NYT depicts a moustached Indian man in a turban and traditional dress with a cow in tow, knocking on the door of a club called the “Elite Space Club” which represents the other developed nations.

While the intention of the aggrieved malayalees seem to be justifiable – to show their anger at a clearly unjustified representation of their countries achievement – the comments section seems to now be spilling over into NSFW territory.

Indians were justifiably proud of the momentous program, and the twitterati were in full force, propelling the twitter hashtag ‘mangalyaan’ to the top of the trending charts. The weight of the same community may back any campaign to ask the NYT to apologise for the cartoon.

If you still have the morbid curiosity to check out the choicest literature dished out on the comments section, check out the NYT times facebook page – the link to their FB page is here – https://www.facebook.com/nytimes

To a lot of the regular readers of the NYT fb page, it would be their first tryst with malayalam  – though its extremely unlikely that they wouldn’t have met an actual malayalee yet – NY is got its fair share of people from kerala. Clearly some of the non malayalee commenters on the facebook posts are confused, with atleast a few of them asking what the hullaboo is all about. Many of them do not know the source of the original article that is causing this reaction.

This is the New york times cartoon caricature which spurred this online reaction by malayalees amongst others –

The cartoon caricature in NYT causing malayalee spam attack

While there has been an online backlash against the racist interpretation in the caricature of an Indian and a cow standing outside and knocking for permission to get into the ‘elite club’ of developed nations, it seems a bit strange that the malayalees seem to have taken the lead in this now common form of online retaliation on Facebook.

Comment spamming is a common tactic to express displeasure on public pages on social media.

The community managers of the NYT facebook page will surely be puzzled about the malayalam spam flooding their pages. Google translator may not help much, and in any case most of the lingo used is heavily colloquial which the software will get stumped in translating.

Attingal technopark murder suspect Nino Mathew beaten up at Nila?

One of my colleagues is saying the police had brought the attingal technopark double murder suspect Nino Mathews to Nila building at technopark for evidence gathering. (This was today 21st April, Monday) And that Nino mathews got beaten up by techies when he was here (Nila is where his company Dimensions cybertech has its offices. That is also where his lover anu shanti worked).

Im not sure how the techies at Nila could have beaten him up if the cops were around. Maybe it would have been his colleagues at Dimensions itself – i guess if the police brought him for taking evidence, they would obviously be going to the office where Nino was working with Anu shanti. If someone did beat him up, the police would probably press charges against them too. Not sure if beating him up is our job or is the solution. Rather than vigilante justice by beating him to death, it is better left to the law to decide what to do.

Pretty sad and tragic the whole event.

Update – Turns out it is true that Nino mathews had been attacked at Technopark when the police brought him to his office at Nila to take evidence. Asianet news has a video of the attack on him.  The video on youtube clearly shows Nino being chased and attacked by the crowd of techies at technopark, and the police are able to whisk nino away before the crowd can completely get their hands on him. His love anu shanthi has not been brought to technopark by the police for taking evidence yet. Considering the reception that Nino got, its likely the police will be careful when their bring anu shanti to Technopark, if at all.

The video of him being beaten up is posted below

 

 

The death of the hartal argument- is it time?

We should delink keralas climate from climate within its IT parks – that would be like saying mumbai has terrorist attacks and slums with sub human conditions so its not suitable for investment.

Or conversely if we think statewise, then Kerala kicks the pants off other states in all human indices factors. (because it means we would have to think of Maharashtra and not Mumbai, Karnataka and not Hyderabad) – just a few kilometers out of bangalore the set up drops to abysmal levels. In maharasthra suicide levels of farmers are the highest in India. In Navi mumbai there are more powercuts than in Trivandrum 10 years ago.

The end result of infrastructure development is higher human indices. If that does not happen then i prefer a slower but more equitable, inclusive and manageable form of infrastructure development.

But hey thats me – i have one vote.

I have been working here in Technopark for 6 years. I haven’t seen the park drop a single days work in this time. Not a single day. Hyderabad has been burning for weeks now – telengana, rayalseema, death of movie stars, i can go on about city wide disruption. Same for bangalore. Mumbai had several major disruptions from terrorist attacks, shiv sena attacks on migrants, and the flooding that takes place every single year.

Atleast our hartals are pre announced – and businesses can prepare – unlike the ones in other cities where unprepared companies and industries face bigger losses.

But you know, i could be wrong –

But i don’t think that the companies setting up shop in Kerala are – they must have done the due diligence – TCS was here years ago, Infy is developing its own campus, and Wipro and CTS are there in Kochi. That pretty much covers the roster of top Indian companies. Their size is not the question – they would not have come if they felt that it could not deliver.

Just my 2c.

Getting more business to Technopark and Infopark

There are 600 000 foreign tourists who came to Kerala in 2008. Its increasing 20% YoY. Most of them are concentrated in Kovalam, Alappuzha town, TVM city, Kochin City, Varkala. Why not target them in a cost effective manner. Some of them might end up considering Kerala as a potential IT destination for their company.

a. Most of them are senior people, who may have businesses of their own, or are employees who can suggest Kerala as an IT destination to their home companies.(even if they prefer to keep their jobs home, they are all facing pressure to cut costs and increase productivity)

b. All of them come through the airport so they are easy to target (thankfully TVM airport is not a gargantuan one yet. A simple kiosk will do the trick). Perhaps hit them when they are departing with something useful.

c. We can distribute CD’s or printed literature about Kerala. Perhaps with something that is actually useful to them. Say for example free reusable USB sticks with our material and some great content on Kerala they can show the folks back home. (USB Sticks can come from China 🙂 )

d. Most software businesses appreciate Kerala only once they have been to other states and then come to our state, and see the difference in pollution, general cleanliness, knowledge of english and much lesser traffic. Not to mention cost. A tourist is in much better shape to understand how Kerala is better than other states as they have seen it in person.

e. Most tourists are european. Europe is having a age skew issue and are willing to consider that they may need resources

f. They ‘may’ be impressed with the healthcare system and wellness systems available here. Also tourist spots(beaches, hillstations, forest getaways). Europeans value these systems and might factor it in while setting up captive centers with potential european employees.

g. Maybe tie up with Travel agencies, who already invest considerable resources in reaching out to potential customers. They might be able to add in the IT factor too…

just my two cents.

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Update:  Got a comment from Sam. Thought i would try to put across a rebuttal.

Here is Sams comment :

“mmmm, Infrastructure in Kerala is a tragedy, and most of the guys do “Manglish” not English. Eglish language skills are pathetic.

The system is the state is chaotic, with too much politics in everyday life. Kerala is good place for tourists who might enjoy a few days here & there. Setting up units here is suicidal.

One Malaysian Infra contractor committed suicide recently, coz he made a mistake setting up a infra company here, pathetic.”

Infrastructure : Infrastructure should be defined as the ratio of available facilities to utilization levels.

Mumbai has massive infrastructure. But due to the load (people) its still not able to deliver satisfactory services. Bangalore also has massive infrastructure – but its currently a nightmare. Im not comparing existing infrastructure in Kerala to anything.  The pace of growth has been languid, but there is an advantage to every process – because of its slow infrastructure growth and politicization (more on that later), we remain comparatively pollution free, have lesser law and order problems and our infrastructure is not taxed to the limit. That’s a negative view to take, but since we are here,  it would  be better to spin it around and use it as an attraction.

As a corollary – infrastructure also means good clean water (think chennai), pollution free air (think mumbai or bangalore) , better, easily accessible, affordable healthcare….

Also note that Kerala has one of the densest population levels in India. And the basic infrastructure is developed (pucca houses, pucca roads, electrification, water lines etc), so revamping infrastructure is that much more costly and has a human side. Its different from other states that have large swathes of land available to spare, or where the displaced people don’t have much to lose (or cannot really stand up for themselves)

English Skills:

I speak pretty good english. I find it odd and sometimes distasteful when my north indian cousins (i literally have cousins) who speak a brand of mumbaia english denigrate the kind of english spoken by Keralites.) Remember that south india forged ahead in IT because we did not have the aversion to english that was there post independence.  Adding a few colloquial hindi words into your english and sounding mighty confident does not mean your english is good. I think the fault with keralites is that they are not confident enough, because they realise that their english is not good. I don’ think the average Tamil, or Hyderabadi speaks better english than a keralite. And if we look across the state, the percentage of people who speak and understand english is very high compared to other states. Remember that within an IT company most people will speak english. But its the ability of the local populace to understand english that will make the difference to foreigners here.  Besides 95% of the IT populace is going to be local, and a little lesser english is not going to do much bad. (that last sentence has something grammatically wrong but i will add it in the spirit of poor english 🙂

We also need to remove this english equation and replace it with communication. If you visit Google’s website, they have intros to their various teams all across the world. Some teams, like from Japan and Europe, just don’t speak english at all.

Politics is everywhere. Politics is necessary

Are we seriously telling that there is no politics in Hyderabad? Watch the news. Mumbai- politicized and unsafe? Delhi- Capital? Chennai?

I think the irritation we all have as techies is that in Kerala even a few people with a grieviance can cause a problem. So if a few houses are being acquired for the airport , or if a sewage line broke, they can cause a problem. Politics in other states is so grandiose and about such bigger things – Terrorism, Telengana, etc etc.

Our politics is similar to the US, where there are focus groups, lobbies and bands of people who come together to push for anything they want changed, even if its sometimes trivial. I think we should enjoy that and create systems to address it. Politics in various European countries is like a soap opera. Italy has never had a proper full government in years.

In the long run, more politics has made kerala have a greater standard of living when compared to many other states. Arguably its due to the Gulf money but even so.  Some day “Less politics” will come back and bite us.

China is completely apolitical. A business mans wet dream. But someday “less politics” will take its toll. The one child policy has kept population growth down, but postponed their problems to later with a growing older population, and kids who are treated like emperors and end up having various health problems.

A tough market to break does not mean suicidal.

The malaysian contractors suicide is an avoidable tragedy. But are we seriously thinking that projects in other states are not being held up? Gujarat is one of the most sought after destinations – but didn’t the riots influence the businessmen? Bengal and Singur. Andra and Rayalseema.

Business have to find legal ways of staying the course. If infra here is suicidal, there are tons of Infra companies making a beeline to Kerala. They have done their market research, and they know how tough it is. We forget that before Infra was big in Mumbai or Hyderabad, there was upheaval over there too. Infra is not easy. Making roads in Maoist areas in Andra is not easy.

I think what business men mean by tough is that its the usual methods of Bribery or Threats doesn’t make much headway here in Kerala.(In addition to Bribes and threats, you have to find a way to work the system).  It will take years before the system changes. Its unfortunate, but by no means restricted to Kerala.

Tourists

Most tourists who come here experience first hand the infrastructure or quality of living here. For good or bad, it either impresses them or disgusts them. Yet we find more of them coming back.  If they find staying a few days here worthwhile, its enough to convince them to stay for a few months to set up their business. Most of them will only visit Kerala a few times a year even if they are running a business here.

Does this mean something? Also known as ‘my experiments with Blogging’

After having registered the Technopark wordpress domain name in 2007, i had pretty much left it as it is except for a few postings.  In January this year i did a test drive of a new concept for the blog, that i had been fleshing out for my company (its related to photography). Basically it meant creating content around photography that was interesting to people and also had the potential to target ‘long tail keywords’ like us online marketers would like to call it.

So put in a few test posts in January and then moved onto doing the same across my company blog. The company blog turned out to be successful and gets quite a few visits every day. This ‘photography ideas’ blog started at my company gets 5000+ monthly uniques on pure search alone, most of it being long tail keywords related to photography. The great thing was this was legitimate content and legitimate traffic for just a few weeks worth of work.

But i was surprised to see that the test articles i had written in this blog in January sat there and brought some quality traffic!

Take a look at the traffic graph for month on month growth. Not much in terms of sheer visits, but percentage wise its pretty cool. And not to mention the blog hasn’t really been maintained.

Update: The traffic levels have gone up sharply after my postings on the Technopark ‘Earthquake’ and the ‘Terrorist scare’.  Probably a combination of the fact that i was one of the first to post on the events and the ‘technopark’ wordpress domain name of this blog.

Monthly blog traffic for this blog over the last few months

This is a sample from a few days worth of traffic –  the keywords seem to be pretty nice too.. (not counting the earthquake and bomb threat related keywords that propped up recently due to the coverage of developments at trivandrum)

some popular keywords over the previous few weeks

Marriage induced attrition, and impact on entrepreneurship

Ahem. The cryptic title of this post can also be translated as – “as you are about to reach marriageable age, people scare you shitless on risk taking”. You get treated like that sick (financially sick for those with a limited repertoire) company being window dressed by investors for a firesale to some other company…

As a follow up to my earlier post on the marriage ‘marketplace’ in India, particularly for software people, i take a look at how the median marriageable age is inversely proportional to risk taking.

Once guys start to cross 26-27 they start to get worried about taking risks because they dont want to have a sloshed profile by the time their parents start to ‘hunt’  girls for them. ( ‘failed business man’ sounds infinitely worse than ‘sorry ass job in a big company where the next 6 months hike is all you know about your future’

So they drop all plans for further education (you need a steady income right?) and absolutely throw away any idea of starting a new business by themselves. Its probably more prevalent in the south of India then the north. Then again, i don’t know. So either you need to shoot straight for an MBA as soon as your fresh out of college, or risk losing the chance to do it afterwards. After all an MBA makes much more sense once you have 5-7 years of experience under your belt. Speaking of MBA’s its strange that in the US they usually take MBA’s to be able to start a business or run one better. Here its still to end up being an employee.

Over my working career i have seen several people shift jobs to a more recognized brand name simply because its pushes their profile up on the ‘market’. Sadly it is true.

In many ways this narrowly defined marriageable age does damp entrepreneurship and encourage a strange form of ‘socially upwardly mobile’ attrition.

The only way out of it is to raise the acceptable age for marriage to 35 for guys. Im sure it will encourage more risk taking, more structured and continuing education and perhaps more productivity over the long term. The other way is for people to accept that their children or son/daughter -in-law might want to do something different and encourage that….

Memories of College

The following chronicles of eclectic hostel memories may make sense only for my deepest friends & college mates who know what its all about. Includes things done & the horrors seen 🙂 If it reminds you even remotely of the best part of your life, consider yourself blessed.

Inches of dust., faraway sickly sweet smell of sweat, alcohol & deodorant, mixed nicely with cheap powder. Shaving razors molested to blunt impotency by legions of adolescent males community-sharing it. Chain sharing of saliva drenched cigarettes. Early morning mix of cigarette smoke & weak, piping hot, sugary tea. Congress bashing. Lots of dandruff. Strangely aromatic termite dust.Shirts tattered from years of ‘armpit & collar only’ washing. Smell of mouldy marklists. two frogs in the toilet for company. Red oxide flooring, (or was it paan stains?) three years of news papers, with a generation of cockroaches within. Smell of burnt mobile phone chargers.The dusty bible/bhagwat geeta you brought when you came for the first time. Searching for reusable disposed cigarette butts in candlelight. Powercuts – when your bathing – groping for the soap in the dark, & hoping it is the soap. Watching the same dust flecks in early morning sunlight & midnight moonbeams. Dirty emulsified tea & cup from two months ago.A myriad insects. Painfully pleasurable mix of relief & stoicism when you make the decision to skip a major exam.Spending the next few hours trying to spoil everyones studies. 20 different french beard styles, all equally bad. Coaxing toothpaste from an empty tube. Using news papers to protect the feet from the dirt in the shoes.Towel washing hair to avoid bathing.Keyboards with undescribable shiny coating. Listening to music during powercuts, till the invertor runs out. Group singing raunchy songs stacked with double entrendes.Swimming in the pamba, barely clothed, & barely afloat. the first colorscreen mobile & cameraphone. The complex maths of minimum pass marks & attendance. Staying awake during election nights, & stocking cricket bats, just in case. Bathing in brackish brown water. ‘Study’ tours- enough said. Dust caked electric fans. Smell of cheap rubber cricket balls. Stretch ironing shirts. Labs. Hiding from the news paper guy. Lungi cricket. Towel fishing. A 1000 shampoo sachets. Last Clean Underwear. A single bottle of homemade oil. Imported shaving cream. Vomit clogged basins. Someones shoes. Everyones shoes. Dirty Wet leather. SMS messages at midnight. Tortoise hunting. Dirty pillows.Smell of fish fat from snake boats. Ticketless travel. WorldCup Cricket.Taking a leak against the wind. Sweat caked hairstyles. Strategies for girls. politics, love,hate & Exams. Ruining others love lives. Exam day mornings & evenings. Exams. Walking to college just to see if the invigilator is a ‘copying’ friendly type. & if the roll number next to you has learnt anything. Writing formulas on your hallticket. Teacher bashing. Going 15 kms to watch a bad movie. Guest lecturers of the female kind. The strange silence before a group fight. & the uneasy comraderie afterwards. Lying in the middle of a wet road, dreaming of redemption. Riding on petrol fumes. Cold water in summer, & winter. Last Clean Socks. mosquito coils in the bathroom. Squashing leftover soap bars to make a new one. Going for a week on bread & tea.Strikes. Elections.Smell of victory & defeat. Dil chahta hai hairdo – disaster. Chicken & dosa. Bullseye & dosa. Finally , just dosa. Chalk dust & machine oil. Cheap foam & aluminium roofs. Goats & Chickens in the classroom. Smell of freshly photocopied exam chits. Light grey shirts dirty with dust. Dark grey shirts with island like sweatmarks. And all the colors of gray in between. The testosterone inspired bravado to seek an omlette at 3 am in the night. Dry tar & wet grass.

And a million more sights & smells, all rolled into one intoxicating, obnoxious, delicious 4 years. Somewhere along the way, we studied a bit, but learnt a lot. And guess what. We didn’t turn out so bad. Infact we turned out just fine 🙂

The value of a job

Wondering how much peoples perception has changed about what causes them to become wealthy.

Over the last few years, people have looked upon a job as just a way to sustain themselves and their lifestyle, and ‘appreciation’ as the aspect that increases their wealth.

So they buy land, and later the value of the land increases magically. They become more wealthy

Or they buy stock and the same thing happens. Ditto for gold , flats and everything else.

But the poor job languished as a poor cousin to these massive wealth creators.

Particularly since the ‘job’ didnt ‘appreciate’ as much as the other value creators.

Even then people tried to ‘leverage’ their jobs by changing them as often as they can , so each time they get a raise for no other reason than just to leave their old job. Cant imagine how many times i have been asked as to why i havent jumped ship in 5 years.

We also learnt to take jobs for granted since there was always another one around the block.

But now the scene has changed. The only real wealth you create is one you build, day by day, for the effort that you do. Prudent investing in appreciation is definitely something you should do, but they depreciate as much as they appreciate.

When something is too good to be true , it usually is. So if property price rise takes your net worth up a few dozen lakhs, expect it to come down in a few years. On the other hand, how many of us have had to downshift for lower salaries? Experience and downright hardwork always pays dividends.

This must of course be seperated from risk taking. When you do buy a property at a loan, and use your job to pay out that loan, you are creating new wealth for yourself.  But its still a risk. And you havent’ created’ wealth till the day you have paid out your loan. The fact that the property is much more valuable than when you bought it is nothing.

This holds true when we speak in decades, not years. Over the next 5 years, we will most likely sink into the same pattern again, probably invent another bubble for us to paint a rosy picture of our lives.

But after 10 years, after everything is said and done, what we work for and earn is what really makes us wealthy.