The playing field is being leveled... or is it?

I am working in one of the top multinational company – Infosys. The people who are sitting at the top are people who make or break international news everyday. We get to read articles on NRM sir, Nandan, on our desktop on a regular basis. One of such news was the interview of Nandan by Thomas L. Friedman (Pulitzer-winning New York Times columnist) about his book ‘The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century’. Friedman was interviewing many Indian entrepreneurs for a television documentary. What impressed me most was the intriguing way Nandan answered Friedman’s questions. Finally this is what he writes in his article for New York Times (only a part of it…)

At one point, summing up the implications of all this, Nilekani uttered a phrase that rang in my ear. He said to me, “'Tom, the playing field is being leveled.” He meant that countries like India were now able to compete equally for global knowledge work as never before — and that America had better get ready for this. As I left the Infosys campus that evening and bounced along the potholed road back to Bangalore, I kept chewing on that phrase: “The playing field is being leveled.”

“What Nandan is saying,” I thought, “is that the playing field is being flattened. Flattened? Flattened? My God, he's telling me the world is flat!”

Here I was in Bangalore — more than 500 years after Columbus sailed over the horizon, looking for a shorter route to India using the rudimentary navigational technologies of his day, and returned safely to prove definitively that the world was round — and one of India's smartest engineers, trained at his country's top technical institute and backed by the most modern technologies of his day, was telling me that the world was flat, as flat as that screen on which he can host a meeting of his whole global supply chain. Even more interesting, he was citing this development as a new milestone in human progress and a great opportunity for India and the world — the fact that we had made our world flat!

When I read this article, I was impressed by the way Americans are getting moved and bugged by leaders of modern India. The phrase stuck to my mind too, “The playing field is being leveled”. Indeed, it is. The likes of NRM sir, Azeem Premji, Sameer Bhatia have created so much difference in the growth of our country.

The columnist came to India just to write about the ways Indians have captured the whole world of IT industry. But I am not here to talk about just the IT industry. I am here to talk about INDIA. That is what concerns me more than just the IT Industry. The topic I am about to embark upon is a controversial one, lots of debates, hunger strike have been made on it but what have we achieved – Nothing.

I will again say the phrase, “The Playing Field is being leveled.” Are we trying hard to grasp the true meaning of this phrase? When I saw the news, Reservation is a major issue. People are coming out with rallies, hunger strike. Govt is giving out staggering figures. I think someone was talking about 63% reservations in TN or Chennai (not sure about the data). Come on folks, I don’t see any leveled field here. I don’t have a solution for this situation as I am biased to the whole situation. Nandan’s phrase doesn’t fit in this case, that’s all I can say.

I get a forward saying Saurabh from AIIMS dies of Hunger strike against reservation. Media doesn’t want to cover it because its controversial. I don’t know whether this is true or false, but if it’s false why don’t the media say it is. I enjoy every bit of coverage from NDTV when it comes to cricket, natural calamities others. Today I feel that even if this news of student dying for a protest is false, I feel media folks are professionally heartless bastards. They want news but are also puppets in the hands of politicians.

Leaving Reservation I come across another hot topic, Dan Brown’s controversial book Da Vinci Code. Based on this best seller, the movie, Da Vinci Code created ripple among the Religious communities in India.

I am getting too controversial now. Nandan’s phrase was regarding the IT industry of India, for me it’s more about India. Being a vast country and a secular nation, it’s hard to get a leveled field. The corrupt politics and the infected judiciary system have left the common man frustrated, miserable and helpless. From Jessica Lal’s case to millions of scams, we have seen how ineffective the system is.

But then, we are hopeful like always. If IT industry has reached this milestone, living with the same system, having the same type of people, we will some day find a similar solution, a similar ground to solve the problems.

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Disclaimer

All material of this blog is author’s own thoughts and views. They are no way related to his company or his employer.