Hi,
Just talked to one of my closest high-school time friends (in India), another
one I had talked for 2 hours yesterday . I was responding to his voicemail on
my phone which said that XYZ has left his job!!!!!!
People continue to leave jobs in India -- but not this job!!! This job is a
job which brings not only power and prestige but also plenty of money - even by
US standards. That of an Indian Police Service (IPS) Officer - pay is not much
- maybe $1,000 per month (like that in US embassy, DC's analyst's pay :-) )
but potential to make much more income or help others make it - esp. those in
wine/spirits etc business or customs etc in India. I am told that even for
small positions people pay upto a $100,000 and bidding is done for many posts.
Thus, if someone leaves such a job -- it makes for international news -
international phone calls. It is still not confirmed though.
Ofcourse, noone will call regarding strangers. This IPS has been a close
acquaintance - he never acknowledged my presence even at Harvard (though I met
his batchmates of KSG) as he did not while we played street cricket with
tennis balls - before either of these guys got married after getting
respectable jobs.
Neither of us went to IITs. Our school venerated IIT grads. One of my immediate
seniors had come second in IIT JEE entrance exam, another came second in AIIMS
exam. But not all wanted to become doctors or engineers. Others saw the world
in a different light. Some joined family businesses. The IPS guy or myself
preferred humanities . He did his entire Indian education from Rajasthan state
only before he went to Harvard. I had studied in various states from pre-school
onwards.
MBA and Univ corruption
I had met his wife before he did at their MBA college. He was her senior and
had come to deliver talks about how he became an IPS officer. I had met her
while meeting my other friend and while preparing groundwork for an educational
supplement (with advts) on "Management Education in Rajasthan" - an article
which appeared in Indian Express and Financial Express written by my other
friend - which nearly cost him his seat, since on my insistence he highlighted
the trend that other MBA institutes were also having good facilities . The Vice
Chancellor called angrily at my friend's residence -demanding "How dare you?""
Ofcourse I shouldered responsibility (not that I was ever called upon) and
later the Vice Chancellor's office was exposed by our local Indian Express
reporters (whom I had explained the situation of "How Dare you?" ) as taking
big bribes while admitting students into medical grad school (pre-PG) and I
think CBI enquiry was conducted since the VC and the then Chief
Minister were quite close. They perhaps never got round to checking claims
that half the MBA students were on there on merit - the rest on backs of their
parents prestige/political-clout or money.
CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS
These issues come back to me perhaps both of my classmates then stayed right
across from the above mentioned univ. in govt flats wit their parents. My close
friend's father did not get promotion for twenty years because he neither
accepted bribes nor gave any upwards - after twenty years the govt woke up and
he got rapid promotions and came to the state capital where I met his son while
I was in ninth grade. The other classmate was from a well connected family and
his father never had to leave the state capital and only had to deal with
industrialists as part of his job. I have never ever been inside his house -
whether in India or at Harvard .
Amartya Sen's class connection etc
In India he never asked me to come in - here in US- at Harvard he never
responded to an email sent to him by his govt colleague (whom I first met while
talking to Nobel Laureate economist Amartya Sen in his class) -cc marked to me.
The email congratulated my schoolmate on his son's birth at Harvard. Perhaps
because of that he was too busy to meet perhaps the only fellow from his
hometown and school there.
Maybe it was that in my reply I had mentioned my learning from a mutual school
friend (who knew where everyone was) while I was still in India -- that he had
joined both Harvard and also MBA from MIT. Perhaps he was waiting for the
right moment to break the news --once he was done with all these programs. Now
he seems to have broken the radio silence.
IITians are geniuses??
It is interesting that perhaps having suffered (like me) that IITians are
geniuses and (others are fools) many fools like us are seeking world class
degrees - much more prestigious that IITs themselves. Most people think that
after marriage and having kids Indians do not venture abroad. The IPS and the
friend who called me seem to think that world does not stop for non-IITians
even after marriage. Settled life is not an option in a newly globalized and
wired (internet) economy - where suddenly you can see on the other side of the
globe and look up all the campuses (literally thru Google Hybrid map) .
So it seems IITians (including my own students) have to think of other ways to
maintain their aura of superiority and competitiveness.
Or will IITians be overtaken by those small town classmates they left behind
after high school???
Umesh
Umesh Sharma
Washington D.C.
1-202-215-4328 [Cell]
Ed.M. - International Education Policy
Harvard Graduate School of Education,
Harvard University,
Class of 2005
http://www.uknow.gse.harvard.edu/index.html (Edu info)
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/ (Management Info)
www.gse.harvard.edu/iep (where the above 2 are used )
http://harvardscience.harvard.edu/
http://jaipurschool.bihu.in/
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