Karma Cola - Gita Mehta

This book has been standing on my shelf for long with an interesting fast selling title, but as many other fated to just stand there untouched and unread, this one did too for quite a while until this weekend of spare time.

A weekend which started with me brooding over Karma and of the mysterious connect or disconnect of intent with deed and the backlashes thereof. Then also came the thought of the role of Dharma in defining Karma. With this muddle the title Karma Cola had a zing to it. If it was an answer i was looking for, i was definitely up the wrong alley. The book neither claimed to address those questions nor even in the remotest managed to.

It presented a lyrical and at the same time sharp commentary of the Western lure of Eastern (read Indian) mysticism, and the parallel mafia that the Eastern world seemed to become a home for. Gita Mehta has a racy style. She is sharp witted and filled with skepticism without making a judgment of either society. The book is a quick read of the numerous ways one could be hoodwinked in India with real and thus very interesting characters. Characters who very often one would encounter on the dope circuit - in search of God, love, peace and more often, in the process, losing themselves.

India with its rich history of mysticism, culture, mythology, religion that enthralls the world, has an equally colourful repertoire of hoodlums who claim to demystify the former for the Western world. The characters are extreme yet real all the way, jumping out of the pages in their orange, maroon and white robes, their long unkempt beards, the omnipresent chillums - of course the myriad skin tones and accents.

An experience worth a read!

A national icon bound by regionalism!

There are some things in India that are above barriers of religion, state, gender, creed, ideology and blood groups - Cricket being one and Bollywood being unquestionably amongst those. And Amitabh Bachchan should by those standards be the untouched demigod, perched up in the echelons of the respect of Indian citizens.

Here comes a loser politician Raj Thackeray, casting aspersions on the resilient Bachchan personality of not paying allegiance to a State that has made his career. How dare he make donations in another State's development; how dare he inaugurate a college in any State other than Maharashtra and how dare he not act in films of their local language of Marathi!! Doesnt this national icon owe the State of Maharashtra anything?

The argument is futile and overrated even for a discussion on a long second class train journey through arid lands when there is nothing else to do but indulge in wasteful banter!!

But when streets are rid by violence, when innocents are pulled out of their cabs and are beaten up in public by this aspersion causing the ripples of insecurity for all North Indians in Mumbai - the limits of rationale have now been much overstepped! The TV is blaring the idiocy and reckless frenzy of the fanatical Raj Thackeray followers who even after a day in jail are claiming that their purpose is noble, and emanating out of concern for Maharashtrians! They continue to walk unabashed with the same chant after having inhumanly beaten up a cab driver, they stand released for a fine of Rs 3000/-. It is disgusting and appalling that we live in a society that doesnt have a suitable answer for these miscreants!

While his party is on a rampage, Raj Thackeray himself stands untouched by the police! While politicians and knowledgeable spokespersons on television continue to wax eloquent on the objections that they raise against this act, the Thackeray is obviously escaped unscathed - and what harm can a few television stories with bad press do to him! Amitabh maintains dignified silence even as his house is attacked by bottles crashing on his walls. All of this laughs out loud at the World's largest democracy or the largest pretender of democracy! This is a nation that gave birth to victory through non-violence and simple thoughts and living - and the TV continues to blare the same antonym - the same coverage over and over again of the bald man tucking his sword in place for use through this civil outburst and another who leaps on the cab of the poor North Indian driver denting the roof and bonnet out of shape. The mockery continues!

This is not about hurting the sentiments of the Bachchan dynasty - while it is of grave concern that even an all pervasive icon of the stature of AB can be torn down to the ground so ungraciously - the concern is to what unfathomable depths is our society reaching to gain political mileage! And how much longer are we going to ponder on this after the news stops flashing the three untruths of Raj Thackeray about Amitabh Bachchan that has caused such unrest in the cosmopolitan and accepting city of Mumbai?!

Egypt...the story is more than that of Tutankhamen and buried coffers and caskets!

The Egyptians have heard the oft told tale of India’s success in making its arduous way to being the top offshoring destination, and there are lessons to be learnt from the successes and failures in this journey from the early 90s to being the Knowledge Super Power today. The country wants to now learn, of course in an accelerated manner from India. To learn from the wrongs and rights that the Great Indian Story has seen in this journey, the team from Egypt has been conducting a number of workshops inviting Indian companies to narrate to them this exciting tale. And the first of these International Workshops was conducted by Zensar!

The Workshop addressed outsourcing and offshoring in India and encapsulated the lessons to be learnt. The audience was an experienced group of IT professionals from the Egypt Industry. Some had years of experience in running their own businesses, others were business development managers and marketing professionals who had to come to learn the ropes of successful marketing. The academic community from the Information Technology Institute (ITI) was also well represented reassuring its commitment to making Egypt an outsourcing and offshoring success.

It was a great experience to witness the unveiling of a new offshore destination in my mind. Pardon my limited knowledge or a vision of a meagre chart with statistics that quote Egypt as a competing low cost outsourcing destination - but there was not more than the image of miles of yellow sand, belly dancers on the Nile, mysterious tall Pyramids and young Pharaoh Tutankhamen that filled my mind even as i approached the large sprawling town of Cairo.

That chilly evening prior to the Workshop we were to conduct, my co-faculty and I stepped out for some coffee, and at the nearby Coffee Shop and were pleasantly surprised by the level of connectivity that we saw. Little children hung out there at 'Cilantro' doing their assignments online, looking up the Internet to supplement various subjects of architecture, design and even history.

The participant group at the Workshop the next morning was an eclectic group with varied levels of experience but uniformly high level of knowledge on the happenings around the World and especially so of the developments in India.

It was a proud moment that starting day of the Workshop with the local media streaming in with the excitement of the first International Workshop for the IT SME of Egypt being flagged off - and for me personally to be representing India - a country that has the World watching it, and now wanting to learn from it! The programme was a roaring success and we made some great friends in a country that is alien no more.

However we left the shores of the Red Sea that final day, thinking that here is a country sitting at the threshold of a great opportunity with brilliant minds and with the right lens looking out at the future!