Kerala: We don't need no Education!

Click this video link (Courtesy: Manorama News) to see how Kerala's most "popular" Student Political Organisation resolves matters!!! Scary & Shocking to say the least! Apparently, they were protesting the suspension of a student! Violence seemed to be the only option for the so-called student organisation of the party for the people! Watch them ransack the offices of Kerala's oldest college - CMS College, Kottayam

Courtesy: Asianet News, Youtube

I will never forget the insecure student politician standing on the road outside his college, who would waylay every thing that moved. 

How could I forget that insecure fella who walked up to me, pointed to my long hair (which he could never dream of having cos his hair resembled scrambled eggs) and commented in typical Thirunthoram slang "Thalle, ninekku Entheruuudaaaai Mwoda??? Dai, ninekku mudi vettaan baisakal venemenkil parayadeee...thallleee...thalleee....thalleee!" - that translates to something like ("Motherrr! What is your problem? Do you think your hairdo is too good? If you want some money to cut your hair, tell me...motherrrr, motherrrr, motherrr!) 

Damn, we are now beginning to sound like Floyd!

Talking about the insecure breed, some of them grow up to be Engineers & Doctors from prestigious institutions and realization dawns in their heads about how foolish they were, with all that violence and howls of "Thalle! Thalle!". 

But, unfortunately, a few of them, even after educating themselves, fetching a good job, a wife and being even in their 30s, still cry hoarse when they see good long hair, if you know what I mean!. They spread the Thalles' to the next generation and the tradition continues...Way to go!

My Space: New Year Curry

Prosit Neujahr! (Happy New Year!)

I have been either too busy or very lazy this year to write. 2009 was interesting enough to stir a few and a lot of fun to end with - some rather unusual highlights below:

Spared by the Wall of Death

I could have been long gone but I guess for some reason, I have been spared for another time. A 20+-foot high and 50 meter long stone wall next to my ancestral home and nearly 100 years old collapsed, missing my car by 15 minutes.

The car was parked alongside it all day and locals having seen it thru the day were convinced there was a car under the rubble! The wall is an extension of the wall of my ancestral home and is part of an old palace. The Wall of Death on the right of the picture below...

The Road(s) to Hell

I woke up one morning and found the road to my home dug up with a board by it that looked something like the above... Actually, if you wanna die a slow, very slow death, try the Crippled Road Works Zone. At least you know when you are gonna die unlike the stone wall above. 2009 was more like this ... Let’s hope 2010 is less crippled.

He Graduated Too Fast To Be True, He is Rising!

^^^My lil fella quickly graduated from cars to airplanes especially after that nasty blow he received on his head when we were negotiating the smallest pothole in town. He said No! to cars after that and chose to Fly! Hell! Who would not!!! Nevertheless, he along with the city he lives in, is Rising!

Enslaved, Insecure, Second-Class Citizens who read Third-class Newspapers

2009 saw the rise of many a childish Cyber Thug-ray who have a lot of world to see. They read newspapers that cater to less than ten percent of all newspaper readers, they don't wanna see beyond the boundaries of their towns, they wear beanies in tropical climes, they lie and spread lies, dig music reality shows and watch "mega serials"... If you thought there were Thug-rays only in Mumbai and Mangalore, think again!

Someone once said - "There is nobody as enslaved as the fanatic, the person in whom one impulse, one value, has assume ascendancy over all others".

Education and money and an internet connection alone can't make you a better person, can it? You cannot really change what is in your blood, no matter what!

Inspector Gadget is Confused
This is about that Big Story (oh no! Don’t quote that ten percent newspaper again ) conspired by the I-am-Red-But-I-Need-God-In-My-Life, Genius-Mallu-Nurse, All-Muscle-No-Looks, I-Came-Looking-For-My-Roots-In-The-Outback and a few other beanie boys. The Big Story on which they still orgasm resulted in a few innocent cops having to admit their mistake arising out of a situation where they had to listen to several masters under severe stress and long working hours!

"Crap" Girl-Friends

This blog has always been an effort to not focus on areas like Politics or Infrastructure - two things that don't really improve in this part of the world and can irk a few insecure online souls. Instead, I have been inspired to write crap by two of my girl-friends (i mean they are girls, my apologies ladies ;)), one - my new hire at work who blogs a lot of crap herself, she gets home at 7 and sleeps at 10 and yet finds time to blog! And the other - my friend from quite sometime who now lives in the UK and blogs for hours every day. We all are very random writers who write the way we speak and not with the dictionary next to us. We do not research, we do not quote boring statistics and statisticians, neither do we believe in bigger is better, lol.

Work, A Reunion and A Missed Cruise

Towards the end of the year, life was all about friends and family. Took a break from work and had to choose between a luxury high seas cruise off the Cochin coast and a 'Village' reunion with the Kiwis (people I lived, studied, worked, ate and drank with). At the end of the day, I just made sure we mates hung out while my family sailed on board the Aquamarine.

The kiwis and I would eat dosa every morning and head out like backpackers and drink in Bangalore's VIP lounges and spend the nights at my uncle's extravagant farm-house in the outskirts where urbanization is fast catching up. The last time I went there, there was only the famous Dance School - Nrityagram next door.

The Wifey's Shopping Trip Next Door

The wifey was happy I took her to Cochin for shopping after X'mas. But now, she wants to move out of the capital. She likes busy cities just like me. She says she was happy to see a mall (Oberon) in Kerala and more malls like the Lulu being built as big as the ones she sees in the US every year. Which of course means, she wants to do nothing but shop in Cochin, which I myself do quite a bit of, once a year. In the very little time I had between two parties and the holiday traffic, I managed to buy myself a nice pair of jandals and eat authentic shawarma which I had last tasted in Dubai a while ago.

The Times of Family

During the X'mas-New Year season, we attended a total of 6 weddings and the engagements, bachelor's parties and wedding eve parties that come with each wedding. And all of this in just a lil more than a week. It was like wedding in Cochin at noon, party in Kottayam at night or the other way around...! An entire generation of cousins just entered a new phase in their lives.

New Year's Eve was calm and early but eventful and thankfully I could not hear any Ganamelas in the neighborhood. Some cousins - around 40 of us brunch-ed on the shores of the mighty Vembanad Lake in the Sailing Club at Kumarakom. There was the finest tequila, malt, BBQ pork  and of course the music. We had to drive the Breezers down from Bangalore. Kerala offers no good liqour, all the liquor you get is so ugly brown!!!

We had another engagement to attend the same night, so we wound up with a ride on a cousin's luxury yacht with some beer and chips, into the last sunset of 2009...

So, that was 2009 in a nutshell. I just had to write something ... and I promise to try to improve my writing skills.

God's Own Curry v1.2: Kerala - Welcome to the Jungle, We got Fun & Games...

Picture Courtesy: Malayala Manorama

Most of us in literate Kerala must have seen the above picture early morning today in the leading Malayalam newspaper, the Malayala Manorama (not just read by people in Kottayam, Ernakulam & Thrissur)...

This is a scene from the 3-day old strike by auto/taxi drivers in search of "greener" fortunes.

A lady carrying an infant to hospital in a rickshaw is stopped by another rickshaw driver who again tries to deflate the vehicle's tire so that they are forced to take part in the 'strike' - something which has not changed anything one bit...This little comrade who obviously is a product of Kerala's left-over politics which believes in 'if you can have it, why not me (but with no effort)...I wonder if this energetic little fella ever has had a wife or kids - to start with. Ever wondered why a lot (a lot!!!) of sensible people are trying a way out of this mess which still claims to be owned by the Gods!? Ahem!

Oh well, good to see a law-abiding citizen wearing a helmet in the background ;)!! That is the only positive thing you see in the picture! Lol! Welcome to the Jungle, ha?

Education: NASSCOM finding - 75% Engineers Unemployable

Engineers Unemployable! That surely is some bad news for parents who continue to think that Engineering & Medicine is the only way to a successful career. How about being a Male Nurse, for a change? Not that desperate, huh? Or Photography, Travel Reporting?

If you are gonna owe the above NASSCOM finding to the recession, think again. The recession is one reason, of course but surely not as big as employability. The report points to “how trainable you are” as the major reason for not succeeding in getting a job. Traditionally (even 5-7 years back), many engineers got jobs, be it Civil, Mechanical, Instrumentation, even Biotechnology or Chemical, most of them would ultimately become Software Engineers! Most companies did not look beyond the academics. A lot of poor communicators were hired and companies ended up spending a large chunk of their revenue on training engineers who could not speak English well enough or who did not grow up learning different kinds of etiquette. The English language and business etiquette are two key requirements since we are working for mostly Western customers.

Last quarter, we were on a hiring spree for fresh engineers. Over 3 weeks, we interviewed in person, 250 engineers from the 2000-3000 applications received. The screening process we employed was pretty simple and straightforward.

1.     Applications: Starting with the applications, those emails received without a proper subject line or content were simply deleted. If you are serious about getting yourself a job, please address the employer and mention the position applied for.

2.     Education: The pedigree of schools/colleges attended and what grades were scored? Interestingly, most successful candidates were from ICSE/CBSE English medium and top SSLC schools. A lot of SSLC schools are run by the Government and follow the Malayalam-medium which does not give much opportunity to students to speak English, which again is the preferred medium of communication in the corporate world.

3.     Communication: is what all employers think is most important. You might code well but if you can’t write 2 sentences of English well, nobody would wanna spend time and money training you. Again here, those who studied in reputed English medium schools and those who generally spoke English in the family and amongst friends were more successful applicants.

4.     Attitude & Preparation: Scoring high marks from a premier institution is simply not good enough anymore. I interviewed a Computer Sc. Engineer (with a distinction) from a premier engineering college in the state, who told us he wanted a job coz he was under pressure from his girlfriend’s family to find a job (not that he had any technical skill what ever happened to the focus on career?

5.     Others: What does the family do for a living? Which towns or cities has he studied in? Has he listed “Books, Music & Cricket” under Hobbies?

At the end of the day, we hired 20 out of 250 short-listed. There were another 10-15 brilliant candidates who could not fit in coz we had already met our requirement. So, that is 30-40 out of 250 engineers, all of them with >65% grades, but just 40 had the right skills, attitude and preparation for a career in the corporate world.
With the sudden mushrooming of engineering colleges all over the state and engineering education turning into a business, most Engineers do not carry with them the attitude and skills of the Engineer of let's say a decade back and are not ready to work in the corporate world. (A recent analysis of Kerala University's B.Tech results over the last few years showed a declining trend of the technical education standards)

This obvious drop in quality of the Engineer should have academicians thinking of a complete revamp of the engineering syllabus which ultimately produces Software Engineers who know not more than two ancient programming languages thus forcing companies to spend more on training - in both communication and programming.

God's Own Curry v1.1

Note: After a series of discussions with bloggers and members of the community, we have decided to edit and remove certain excerpts on this blog which refers to any particular cities, communities or individuals and which probably hurts sentiments of people who are working for the progress of their cities or communities. Unfortunately, the truth remains and let us all try to change that! Also, one must realise that Engish is a funny language that includes sarcasm and humor and you should learn to accept English the way it is!


The very "concerned" hypocrites
A boat carrying tourists capsizes and drowns 45 human lives in the famed Thekkady lake in Kerala. The news attains "national" status primarily coz of the many Northies who died in the tragedy. Investigations ordered. The boat driver and someone called the Chief Inspector of Boats who apparently licensed the boat are arrested.

On the flip side, 1000s die every year on bad roads in the state of Kerala. More die due to bad drivers and gruesome accidents, like those caused by the state-run bus services. Does the Thekkady style of law enforcement apply to the PWD and KSRTC? Will the same responsible State arrest the drivers of those buses or the engineers, contractors and other workers who designed and laid our roads meant for one-night stands?

Or will the Delhi media take up every death caused on the road just like they did with the ferry tragedy? No, they won't and people will die simply because we lack good infrastructure.

The Metro Impact!
Yesterday, the Metro Manorama (supplement in Kerala's leading newspaper) displayed pictures of vehicles carrying fancy-looking registration plates. For the next few days, the traffic cops will fine every other car on the street not following the registration plate guidelines. Metro Manorama will proudly call it "Metro Impact". Rightly so and good work!

But, all the enthusiasm will die down when either a so-called Citizen's NGO goes on strike against the fines imposed on their dear citizens or when the son of a higher-up is given a ticket for the same. Disobedient citizens or just puppet cops?

Of Fanatics & Patriots ...

Removed - Reason: Trying not to be a fanatic myself :)