Tartan Post 1

Tartan
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Avadhoot Jathar
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prologue


Ratrirgamishyati bhavishyati Suprabhatam
Bhaswanudeshyati hasishyati Pankajam cha
Ittham vichintayati Koshgate Dwirefe
Ha hant hant Nalinim Gaj ujjahar


These lines completely symbolised my mindset. The other day when I came across these lines,the flow of my thoughts was channelised. A black bee caught in a lotus bud, hopes for the night to get over and awaits sunrise that shall open up the petals. Then there shall be light! Unfortunately it turns out to be just a day-dream...an elephant squeezed the lotus itself! Hey doesn't it convey an obvious fact: Don't day-dream,put your thoughts in action...you never know what does lady luck have in store for you!


These compelled me to put my thoughts in a web-log hereafter referred to as Tartan. Hey, don't get me wrong, I do not wish to talk about Cornucopia of Scottish Culture. Then why call it Tartan? What for is this commotion? I must admit that I'm fortunate to get great friends who have been connoisseurs of literary works and every connoisseur acknowledges and kindles even a little spark his collegue might have. Such an 'ignited mind' then thinks of logging those thoughts.

Tartans, blanket design patterns from Scotland come in plenty of designs and colours. Each Scottish Clan has been identified with a unique Tartan. Each of these tartans is said to characterise a single family name. Similarly my best pals,the connoisseurs and the epicures,have been identified with unique set of interests to share with. It would rather be a colourful journey to explore and present a variety of those discourses in this weblog. As colourful and as varied as Tartans are! Each of those thought threads carefully woven to make a master-piece as a weaver makes a Tartan.

The first tartan shall be woven about 'Hope'. Hopefully you don't find it hopeless!

Hoping against the Hope?
The maxim,describing black-bee's hope against hope,seems to deter you from being too optimistic. It would say whatever is to happen will happen without you wanting it happen or not. Never do I find books titled 'Think positive','You can win' etc. interesting to peruse. Then what is making me write on hope today?

We all have had a thoughtful camaraderie from engineering background. All of us would aspire to be great technocrats or successful managers achieving challenging goals. We all want something better and keep hoping the same. The stronger version of hope is a desire. It is an every engineers' desire to do his dream-job. In fact, every year IEEE identifies top dream-jobs,that make innovative use of engineering skills. How nice it would be to design life sized Robots for movies like The Mummy, Pearl Harbour or Minority Report! Or to see your own work, something like unmanned submersibles for deep sea explorations of the NGC. Mind you, these jobs are not merely handsomely paying ones,but these are outcomes of those engineers' strong desire to be innovative and to do something out of box. Can we get such jobs,here in India?

Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru had envisioned India,as an empowered and an industrialised nation. No doubt,he had toiled to bring his dream true. Our Honorary President Dr. Abdul Kalam as well sees India as a Superpower by 2020. But while this weblog is getting ready by the eve of India's 57th Republic Day,our President expressed concern over India's growth on grounds of literacy and employment. Thinking about only a smaller section of people, young engineers, how many of them are employed with non IT Companies or non-outsourced work?

The other day I heard one of my relatives starting a firm that shall work on outsourced accounting from UK. I was not surprised that the outsourcing company will have all its manufacturing business in UK, though equivalent engineering labour will be cheap! The most daunting question in our mind would be when shall Indians get into manufacturing things for themselves? When shall we get to see a computer manufactured from inside out by an Indian company? Can we get outsourced work in areas of Manufacturing like China, in areas of Electronics like Japan and Taiwan? What can we do about all these questions?

I do not completely agree with an idea of not manufacturing because it would totally be cheap if you obtain the manufactured items from those who are best at it. Why would then TATAs think of manufacturing a car 'Indica' whose design is completely Indian,native? The entire town of Jamshedpur has come about by the Steel Company that TATAs started. Dr. Varghese Kourian started a movement called 'Amul' and it revitalised town of Anand. IT on the other hand, has affected certain sections of society and do not really mean much to a commonman. With an advent of Electronics,China, though earlier showed refrain to globalisation,has dwelled up well on manufacturing. We all would have seen cheaper 'one use throw away clocks' from China on the roads these days! Local manufacturers would have simply drowned on their advent. We buy the very cheaper chinese products from Dollar Shop/ 49-99 shop.

What should we do looking at the entire scenario? No doubt we may choose to persue a lucrative, creative (and captive?) job in U.S. or other industrialised nation. Captive because it will not let you get back to India very easily. But if we hope to see such a dream-job scene here, it becomes our responsibility to toil for the cause. It becomes our duty to help create the dream-job scene...needless to say to put a step forth as an entreprenuer if requires. It would truly be a much more challenge!...Am I hoping against the hope?

Finally even Chinese IT professionals might outpace and outplace us,who would know? And then we shall truly be Black-bees caught in the dark future of outcast lotus!


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is the first blog posted by Avadhoot Jathar on 26 Jan. 2006. Its an outcome of his discussions with his friend Akshay Pethe.