India’s Graduating Classes-Don't blame them be open before you write open letters

Dear All,

All those who have time and who feel that they need to know the major factors that drive their lives may read and respond. You may read the foot notes and cross reference to blog links after reading the whole article as they may otherwise distract you from the main theme, even otherwise this article may sound as diverting but for an unbiased understanding it is inevitable to meander through these territories.

 I agree with most of the observations of  the present day youth  and their generation. The elder generation, to  which many such article writers belong to , presume that they have the right to sit on judgments over the pathetic plight of the more intelligent, more learned , at least more knowledgeable and for more talented and toiling younger generation. It is easy to generously sprinkle criticisms and observations from cozy comforts of air- conditioned rooms by arm chair critics. While it is welcome in the larger interests and scheme of things and the long term benefits that may accrue due to certain modifications in the approaches to life, profession etc .

In fact in July 2011 I gave a rejoinder to INFOSYS Narayanamurthy for one of his similar comments [A] I feel contents of that letter I wrote are of relevance here. Those interested may also read my brother Sundar’s reply to that which reveals the other side of these people with very high public views and extremely low private operations, the typical hypocrisy of  those who become successful by fate . [B]

While the youth  have just reacted in a very mild way I would like to dig a bit deeper into some of the very fundamental issues involved in a very general way because if I get into specific neither my head nor my heart will work but only my adrenal will flow virulently and violently.

These types of articles stimulate debates and discussions,  or at least instigate arguments and bring out strong reactions in many forms but if any solution or change can emerge out of all these or at least any initiation or serious thought towards changing the scenario then these articles would serve the purpose.

Before that are we to find fault with the present generation of students, job seekers, young professionals? Or have the situations and circumstances wronged them by making them undergo too many rigors academically and otherwise, very often in too many area of irrelevance, inanity and throwing them into the mire of identity crisis as to what they must do? Who they must become?

Life and growth for any individual or institution or nation involves shifting priorities and preferences [1], changing trends and taboos, different perceptions with all its fallible tools [2], new and multiple problems etc. In this inevitable process, we can neither deny the importance of anything nor defy the occurrence of anything. Therefore everyone resorts to interpreting the facts, fictions and fancy ideas and ideologies according to their priorities and perceptions.

But try however hard we may, most of our activities are our choices [3] and attitudes towards certain basic ingredients that affect our lives or are dear to our lives with varying degrees of their manifestation, in many directions, multiple methods and mutations. These basic ingredients [within which you can categorize/include most of things that happen to your life or that you strive to make them happen] for want of space, may be broadly classified as Love, Money, Sex, Death and Fear.

 But life itself , unfortunately for the majority is a dichotomy of Living Aspect of life  and the Survival Aspect of life  and living  with all the activities is a mere pendulum pathetically swinging between these two aspects trying to strike a balance. The fact is those from lower middle class, middle class and upper middle class who form the majority of these job seekers and employees are hardly left with many options other than to fall into some safe, secured groove and once they are in that groove, many of them even totally forget the Living aspect of life. Having said all these we must also understand the following things.

Life is, unfortunately, often subjected to the following tools of evaluation and perception. As I have already written in an article presented to an International Peace Organization in Australia some years back

While exploring the facts we must desist getting distracted from the following major traps:-

1] Mutilating the facts,
2] Analyzing them with preconceived notions or prejudices,
3] Generalizing the particular and particularizing the general,
4] Approaching facts with unloving criticism or uncritical love,
5] Evaluating facts with our pet isms or philosophies,
6] Resorting to statistical justifications,
7] Unleashing unworkable utopia,
8] Mask them with logical fallacies,
9] Bury them in pleasant jargons, and
10] Give historical justifications.

You can find this in my blog entry

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2009/10/peace-and-non-violence-harmony-and.html

and when it comes to evaluation

Evaluate the purpose of life by the amount of happiness you have given to others.

Evaluate the value of life by the extent you have been useful to others.

Evaluate the meaning of life by the love you give to others.

Evaluate the destiny of life by the amount of love you get from others.

Evaluate the quality of your life by your attitudes.

Evaluate the wisdom of your life by the experience you have gained and the lessons you have learnt and the knowledge you have acquired from your experiments and actions.

Evaluate the worthiness of your life by the amount of or extent of realizations you have had.

Evaluate the totality of life not by owning anything or even trying to own life itself but by living life.

But the best way to evaluate life is to live it.

And you live based on what you have and who you are.

Even if you are schooled in irrelevant, inadequate, out dated, useless, erroneous trivia at least do not base your belief systems or thoughts on them because

Your thoughts and beliefs decide your life irrespective of whether you are prosperous, peaceful and happy or the other way.

Because they help you to make the choice and the choices you make decide who you are and what you do depends on who you are and ultimately what you do gets you whatever you have.

But unfortunately we tend to think the process topsy-turvy. We want to have whatever we want and think that it will make us and shape us.

Be on your own don’t choose for others nor let others choose for you. So have your own set of resolutions to make and break.

My blog link

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2010/12/attitude.html

My latest fad is evolutionary psychology. I am studying in detail almost all the facets of life ,life forms and even those areas we normally classify as lifeless but they have their own justification or role to play in the scheme of things. I have already read some 400+ very interesting research papers, plus 100+ books , I am also trying to cull out the relevant observation made centuries ago by some rare scripture. I am doing this after getting inspired by some great authors and two great books namely , THE SEVEN MYSTERIES OF LIFE by GUY MURCHIE , THE HUMAN DESTINY by Le COMTE de Nuoy and almost all the books of Donald NEALE WALSCH his 3 volume CONVERSATION WITH GOD, and his other works like Friendship with God, COMMUNION WITH GOD and Home with God etc and of course Devi Bhagavatham, SOUNDARYA LAHARI , BHAGAVAT GEETHA ETC .

My main thesis is going to be that Everything is Situational or Contextual . I am collecting lots and loads of material to establish the many facts to establish this truth. I am just presenting below part of my preface here.

Starting from the movement of a tiny ant to asteroids; from the evolution of an embryo from an egg to engulfing environment everything emerges, evolves, erupts or entrenches according to the situational demands or circumstantial exigencies i.e. they are created by them or they create the situation or circumstances. This has been a phenomenon for millions of years. It has more or less continued to be the same for millions of years, the only difference being the types, quality and quantity of resources and the resourcefulness of the species to use them. It is this aspect of life that has made the essential elements of all life to be interactive, interdependent, interrelated among different species and environments or within the same species. Throughout intelligent evolution has taken care to ensure that these interactions, interrelations and interdependencies have been initially either to ensure the survival and safety of the physical existence of the species and then those that contribute to the enhancement, enrichment and enlightenment of the body, mind, soul, society and the environment. Once these were ensured they veered towards those activities that gave pleasure and promoted perfecting existing modes of perception, utilities, comforts etc

Ultimately we shall understand the brief wisdom of

THE BHAGAWAD GITA  is one of the clearest and most comprehensive summaries of the perennial philosophy ever to have been done.Such is the obvious teaching of this sacred book.It is composed of the beautiful flowers of spirutual truths as collected from the voluminous upanishads.Gitas door is wide open to anyone who knocks. It occurs in the Bhishma parva of mahabharatha and comprises eighteen chapters from 25th to 42nd.This good book of practical living marked a positive revolution in Hinduism.

THE BHAGAWAD GITA 

I have simplified it as follows for easy and quick reference 


Why do you worry without cause? 
Whom do you fear without reason? 
Who can kill you? 
The soul is neither born, nor does it die. 

Whatever happened, 
happened for the good; 
whatever is happening, 
is happening for the good; 
whatever will happen, 
will also happen for the good only. 


You need not have any regrets for the past. 
You need not worry for the future. 

The present is happening... 
What did you lose that you cry about? 

What did you bring with you, 
which you think you have lost? 


What did you produce, 
which you think got destroyed? 

You did not bring anything, 
whatever you have, you received from here. 
Whatever you have given, you have given only here. 

Whatever you took, you took from God. 

Whatever you gave, you gave to Him. 
You came empty handed, 
you will leave empty handed. 


What is yours today, 
belonged to someone else yesterday, and 
will belong to someone else the 
day after tomorrow. 
You are mistakenly enjoying the thought 
that this is yours. 

It is this false happiness that is 
the cause of your sorrows. 


Change is the law of the universe. 
What you think of as death, 
is indeed life. 

In one instance you can be 
a millionaire, and 
in the other instance you can 
be steeped 
in poverty. 


Yours and mine, big & small 
erase these ideas from your mind. 

Then everything is yours and 
you belong to everyone. 
This body is not yours, 
neither are you of the body. 

The body is made of fire, water, air, earth and 
ether, and will disappear into these elements. 
But the soul is permanent -so who are you? 


Dedicate your being to God. 
He is the one to be ultimately relied upon. 
Those who know of his support are forever 
free from fear, worry and sorrow. 

Whatever you do, 
do it as a dedication to God. 
This will bring you the 
tremendous experience of 
joy and life-freedom forever. 


Honestly live to the ideals 
Implement the way taught, 
in your Day to Day Life
Therefore
Be regular in your pursuits.
Be sincere in your studies.
Be heroic enough to live to the postulates.
Don’t blindly believe.
Keep smiling, live every moment with bliss.

Summing it up everything is contextual Manu smruthi

"The laws of Manu are intended for the Satya Yuga,

those of Yajnavalkya are for the Tretayuga; those of

Sankha and Likhita are for Dwaparayuga; and

those of Parasara for the Kali Yuga.

The laws and rules which are based entirely upon

social positions, time and clime, must change with

the changes in society and changing conditions of

time and clime. Then only the progress of the.. refer my blog link

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2012/04/i-have-always-maintained-that-nothing.html

1] “Everything in any process of growth is just a step, important and inevitable, but not a stop. It is so with mother’s milk [our biological aspect of life]; it is so with learning of alphabets, words and numbers [our intellectual aspect of life]; it is so with hugging, kissing and cajoling as babies [our emotional aspect of life]; it is so with our learning and understanding of different concepts [ our philosophical aspect of life]; it is so with all forms of worship, devotion and all its concomitant rituals and religious practices [ our spiritual life] and so on. This is the inherent wisdom. A normal human being has to go through a process to grow in everything or into something. There may be exceptions like a Adi shankara, or a Bhagawan Ramanamaharishi.

We can neither avoid the steps nor get struck to them. That’s why I cannot accept the snobbism of so called intellectuals parroting pet slogans like religion without rituals, god without religion or religion without gods, spiritualism without god or religion etc. In fact I have books titled in each part of the slogan.”

My blog entry http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2010/02/sanathana-dharma.html

2] http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2010/02/real-perception.html

It is not often our perception but the scale of observation and frames of reference which creates the phenomenon. The scale of observation depends on man; it is he who creates it. In nature, different scales of observation do not exist. There is only one immense, harmonious phenomenon on a scale which, in general, escapes man. The structure of man's brain necessitates dividing into arbitrary compartments and cutting up into isolated pieces. With the aid of several instruments science creates more phantasmagoria: "on our scale of human observation, as pointed out before, the edge of a razor-blade is a continuous line. On the microscopic scale, it is a broken but solid line. On the chemic scale we have atoms of iron and carbon. On the sub-atomic scale we have electrons in perpetual motion which travel at the rate of several thousand miles per second. All these phenomena are in reality the manifestations of the same basic phenomenon, the motions of the electrons. The only difference which exists between them is the scale of observation" [Human Destiny, Lecomte du Nuoy- a marvelous book that everyone must read – if I remember correctly this comes in 34th page I have read that book at least 8 times].

3]  http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2010/12/choice.html

A] N.K MURTHY’S unwarranted comment about IITs and the coaching classes.

I wanted to write a long rejoinder to N.K MURTHY'S comment but then I did not have time and felt there was no need either but still  I felt people who have benefitted maximum out of such system should not hypocritically criticize . Those who live in glass houses should not do two things they must not throw stones at others and also must not walk naked in their glass houses.

So I would like to put it in brief the reason for the fall in standards is precisely due to people like N.KMURTHY'S successful ventures like info sys which degraded our engineering and IIT GRATS to  either dignified telephone operators for US clients sitting in call centers with changed CHRISTIAN names or  using them a mere software maintenance and service providers. The creative aspect, the research aspect, the manufacturing aspects etc were thus never encouraged nor supported. In fact  thanks to private pirates who started the multiple engineering colleges we had many INDIAN students studying and passing out with flying colors in various field of engineering but unfortunately these corporate beneficiaries like  INFOSYS whose bosses who now do the tall talk spoiled the very thought process of the educated youth who were paid very good salaries by these corporate houses and in a country with huge population of educated middle class the priority becomes monetary incentive or earning, so, everyone opted for this, putting aside all their aspirations for creativity, foraying into research , setting up manufacturing units etc as there are no financial incentives for these activities in INDIA barring a very few exceptions. It is a case of when milk is available in sachet why to own a cow, feed it and try milking it syndrome which afflicted the educated middle class for whom these corporate houses provided enough money for them to evolve from middle class to upper middle class.

The very few who still felt that they had to do something creative, of  course ,did, and there are many IITians in this. What they did initially, they forayed into setting up restaurants, good and novel ones, wherein they were assured of immediate returns without credit and some forayed into capitalize the other segment wherein they could cash in and it was a field close to their heart as well, it was academics, so, they started these coaching classes.  If they had earned enough money like N.KMURTHY they would have started huge research facilities outwitting the IITs.

The arena of  higher educational institutions like engineering colleges, medical colleges etc are run by only people who have been either liquor barons, political looters , religious missions and mutts and their priority is naturally something else and the middle class youth getting educated in these institutions is an incidental benefit to the students and excellent source of supply for the INFOSYS, TCS ,CTS etc who have been the ultimate beneficiaries as all that they had to do is to pluck the fruits of brilliant and useful students suited to their relevant  activities readily available in these institutes through campus interviews. So instead of  making press statements let these corporate bodies start institutes of excellence where students of  merit could be sponsored for their creativity, research activities and manufacturing skills etc . Probably as corporate bodies, they can enter into any financial buy back system of agreement with these scholarly students like the royalty that come s out of their research or creativity will be shared by the corporate house sponsoring them and the manufacturing activity also can be designed similarly.

We as a nation have suffered enough due to uncritical love of our heritage and unloving criticism of many activities, instead let the corporate giants who have benefited due to the many institutions do something positive for the future of this nation by investing and promoting real merit based research, creative and manufacturing activities.

B]
Dear balayogi,

you are right. Infosys thrived on y2k software and also Finacial software application for all banks and made Billions, by painting an image that Infosys is  A SUPER GOVERNANCE Entity, roping in as many so called wizkids from USA/ Europe etc to their Exc Board and sub committees.

their present MD, Kris Gopalakrishnan 'openly' flouted 'INSIDER trading Regulaitons of SEBI , but before SEBI Could slap a penalty, the wrongdoer[ kris gopal at that CEO] reporting to NRN & parallel reporting to Nanden Nilekani donated part of the whopping money & margins he collected thro' INSDIER MALPRACTICE to a leading hospital @Mumbai, which was shamelessly flashed on first page as second headlines in Eco Times in 2007-08 Fin Year.

Infosys had at that time a WHISTLE BLOWER policy in place , but at that time either the Whistle did not blow or the person who is supposed to blow the whistle did not have enough courage to blow it.[ dhum illee]

Infosys , of LATE HAS BEEN more of a body shopping software with solid systems in place, parking SW pros in US, Latin Americas, AUZ, Europe et all; so much HYPE was created to project Infosys as the Indian Industrys' ambassdor to the World and taking advantage of the BULL LOBBY at Dalal street and with the same FIIs investing in NYSE where its scrips were listed in many overseas bourses , creating an imaginative MARKET CAP , PROTECTING the TOP LINE & ebdita quarter on quarter without any'REAL VALUE ADDITION';

Infosys went on a recuitment spree  by sucking & luring young professionals for an astronomical package and making them slog like slaves' to SW programs than 'innovative thinking and risk taking ability and entrepreneural leadership, which the IITs & professionals from IITs  are well known for.[Infosys has so many MBAs from IIMs

& mgt grads from many such biz schools who are so paranoid with templates, formats and fundaas...]

NRN should shut his mouth having made so much of fortune and created wealth for himself and his team members,  so much of un wnated support to the largest Borrower in the Universe, USA.

more in my next edition .

sundu.

if he and his team members are so capable, why not while he was a faculty @ IIM [ known for fundas only and not anything , anywhere near IIT on scientific innovation and analysis] could think of forming a Technical Institution like IIT?

Regards

Balayogi

balayogiv@gmail.com