A lot has been written about the Flat World. And as the world stands today, a lot more would be written in the days to come. My CEO, a man I respect immensely both as a professional and as a person, has gone gaga over Friedman for over a year now. Every time I have met him since (and I meet him often) he has mentioned Flat World in some context or the other. He has even loaned me his author-signed copy to read. Subsequently, I have meet new people who live and breathe this phenomenon. This, it would seem has become the unauthorized bible of the new free world. (Amen!)

The gradually unfolding events do make it apparent that the world is indeed getting flatter. My humble opinion is limited to the question, how much flat is desirable and are we geared enough to manage the various dimensions of the fallout. However, we shall leave that for another post.

Niladri’s post got me thinking, personally how have I experienced the Flat World?

I remember my last trip abroaad and my desperate attempt to buy something ‘Made in USA’ for the folks back home, which did not burn a hole in my pocket. But everything that was affordable had ‘Made in Some-where-else’ tag and that left me trifle irritated. My Lee was cheaper in Bangalore. My Godivas were available at comparable rates with my friendly Brigade Road store and where I didn’t have to face the custom officer’s disapproving look at my sinful chocolate pile (If chocolates were sin, I am a sinner many times over!) Even, my Estee Lauders were a whiff away in the city malls.

Therefore I decided to try elsewhere. Finally I was gifted a Dreamcatcher. I was thrilled to find the ‘love’ Dreamcatcher that I had carefully researched. 25 USD. That’s expensive for a contraption of messily woven threads on a wooden frame with a few eagle feathers (!) hanging at the edge. You don't bargain in Reservation Area, I was told.  Moreover, this was a Dreamcatcher! It’s supposed to bring luck. And no one bargains with luck. I feel a shiver down my spine. This is it, I think. The package is wrapped carefully and I treat it like a pirate’s treasure till I unwrap it back home and discover this tiny tag. ‘Designed by local artists in AZ, USA. Made in China’.

I still have the Dreamcatcher hanging in my room over my bed but being of chinese origin, it miserably failed to ‘capture the heart's desire in my dreams’ as otherwise I believe it would have!

Long Live the Flat World!

Janie’s Got a Gun

17/04/07. ABC News Cho Seung-Hui is a 23-year-old resident alien of the United States, a Virginia Tech senior majoring in English and the man who killed 33 people — including himself — on the Virginia Tech campus on Monday.

Over a conversation yesterday with a friend in LA, she expressed that she is scared to send her 5 year old to school since the campuses are becoming so violent. All this when I am hoping the world becomes a safer place for all my children.

Couple of questions:

1. Who will take the social responsibility for the deaths now that the killer is dead?

2. Agreed guns don’t kill people, people kill people but would some body wake up and make access to firearms difficult in the US of A?

3. Is it fair to assume that all consenting adults have the ability to hold reasonable judgment at all times when given easy access to kill another?

4. If yes, then why is US crying hoarse over North Korea’s/any-other-nation’s nuclear program? (I would assume that people taking decisions on nuking another nation have more control over their emotion and judgment and more time to deliberate than the average Joe who have a gun in their back pocket)

5. If the killer had say a switchblade instead of an automatic, the death toll would have been lesser?

6. Is it fair to highlight that the killer is not of American origin? Is redemption easier if he was?

7. Levitt says swimming pools statistically, claim more lives of children below 10 years than do guns. Will extending that argument trivialize the issue on hand?

8. Agreed bold policy decisions often influence ground realities like crime rate (abortion and its cumulative downstream effect on crime rate and here we are talking about US). But are we seriously analyzing the increase in the rate of first-time viz a vie repeat offenders across the various nations? And what are the correlations there?

9. Is it practical to police a campus?

10. Is it practical to do a socio-psychological profiling of all students?

11. Flat world is fine when it is with commodities (I have reservations here too). But the same in case of people/talent brings in socio-cultural challenges. Are we doing enough to address this?

12. Will this affect the immigration laws?

On a more personal note, I went to a school that had the following distinctions:

1. More students per square foot than the written words. (got a Guinness book mention no less)

2. An environment that stifled creativity and encouraged as Niladri said intellectual apartheid.

3. Apathetic teachers with only a few exceptions.

4. And all this in what was supposedly one of the better schools at that time.

Consequently, the level of frustration was high. In fact, my guilt-tripping, value-oriented upbringing did not debilitate me from plotting a plan to blow up the school before a physics test. We plotted and planned (while the blessed lot studied) but eventually it didn’t fructify because of a design flaw (the standby power generator room was too far away from the main building) and the fact that we did not have access to the primary raw materials required for the fire show. At the end, I got 82/100 in the said test. I went on to study in DSE and have a job that I love. If we had access and license to destabilize lives, I would have had a life term in prison.

I am making a limited point here.

Namesake@fLaT wOrLd

While the world identifies with Gogol Ganguli as he searches for his identity and even promises a possible Oscar, let me tell you, no one was so benevolent with me!

 

Must say, I am fortunate that my grandmother overcame the overwhelming urge to give her brand new grand daughter a complex-intonated bengalee name that would have surely twisted my Grade I teacher. For that I am thankful. Therefore I was saved from the torture of having to spell out and pronounce my name repeatedly whenever I met someone new. Except when someone asked for the meaning where in I would invariably blush and say it means ‘darling’. ‘Oh, how nice!’ my father’s German friends would comment.

School was smooth sailing as far as the name goes and in college it always managed to garner some curiosity among the male crowd since there were atleast a dozen bollywood songs that they could tease me with. This unfortunate trait continues till date.

In Delhi, my cosmopolitan DSE classmates didn’t stumble over my name and most thought the combination of my first name and last name was ‘sexy’. Therefore, I hung in cloud nine when a visiting French prof. I had a crush on back then, rolled my name on his tongue, making it sound very endearing indeed. You got to give it to the French.

Next stop, Mumbai. No problem here either. Though many were surprised to meet a bengalee with a name that was not as elaborate as Sushmita, Anindita, Anusuya, Shashwati, Suchismita or exotic like Ujjaini. Well surprise surprise. Only a friend insisted on calling me Pee-ya and he alone choked at his own joke everytime.

Finally, I was hurtled to Bangalore. Here alone began the fun.

Circa 1996. I am in the queue for my driving license at the RTO office.

What name madam? (that's how we speak here!)

Piya De

Prrrriya Daay? (Damn! They have to roll that bloody ‘r’!)

Its Piya…no ‘rrrrr’

Waaatttt? (yes, that's how we speak here!)

Its P-I-Y-A

Ohhh! Peeyaa....daru peeya? The officer sniggers, immensely proud of his hindi.

(I am counting backwards from 10-9-8-)

I get my license eventually and for the first time felt foolish about a name that I was hitherto proud of.

As I continue living here, I have gradually stopped being obsessive about correcting one and sundry about the right pronunciation and spelling. In fact, I respond to Priya more readily than I do to the original.

Only regret, thanks to globalization, my collegue Subramaniam has become Sab, my friend Anindya had become Andy, I of course remain where I began. As my mentor says, Your's  is already ‘globalized’.

My grandmother, the wise old lady that she was, must have seen this coming.