Yesterday and Tomorrow in India Today

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good and well written article. The only thing missing is a bunch if oictures. I am pretty sure chowk staff could have accomodated them within the article somehow.

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Dost-mitter

One of the significant elements of the Muslim culture in India over the centuries was the ``Tawaif`` - the ones who extended themselves into the culture through their music, dance and ettiquett. And not only confined to the sex part.

They spawned numerous love affairs with Nawabs - a theme on which at least 30% of the Indo-pak film industry is based.

In your train rambles through India, did you ever venture to study this aspect? And its present form?

In Pakistan, off course, these are hounded by the custodians of religion and they live spread out in posh areas - only to report on duty after sunset at their official shop.

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#48 by hamidm2 on June 8, 2003 8:04pm PT

Dear Hamidm you wouldnt know what im talking about because there is no offical directions from IMF or the US economists for it.

However let me educate you about some things. Not that people will not jump at the opportunity to make reboks or Nikes they do. For eg a couple of kilometers from my home in Bangalore there is slum and on its borders there is a equally slummy industrial estate (infact you cant distunguish one from the other) Chances are that if you brought one of the reboks or Addidas or Lotto shoes here it might have been made in that slummy factory with no board , a rachety and rusting gate and rusting tin roofs.

Similarly there is a company in Bangalroe called Metal Impacts which manufactures auto components for MICO-BOSCH. Let me tell you how one of the component is manufactured. the Deisel hand primer usuall avaialble in most bigger deisel trucks(deisel hand primer is a small pump like device with a small barell and a cup at bottom and a pump like mechanism to suck diesel from the tank in case the engine gets dry usually happens if you run out of diesel or in cases of cold etc). This is a Boch brand which commands top positon in the European market and one of the top position in USA.

MICO the subsidary of BOSCH in india is suppossed to be doing the manufacturing. MICO gives the Order to Metal Impacts. Which in procures the raw material and gets it delivered to two fabricators who make the cup etc. the main body of solid metal needs working on a lathe and is also given to 4 companies. let me describe one of the four companies.
This one is run by a guy called shivakumar ex employee of metal Impacts he is a 10th standard pass and has about 1 years exp as a lathe operator. His factory is a 12 by 14 feet shed in bylanes of a semi-slum the floor which might have been there in his factory has long since vanished it has mud and large indentations in the floor whose color varies from black (form oil grease etc) to a very dark brown. Shiva kumar has 4 employees apart from himself. once the work is done on the product (about 16 operations) the product goes to Metal Impacts in a rickety old Van which usually takes a few minutes to start.

When it reachs Metal Impacts the peice is put on a small hand machine which basically by racheting a lever on the peice etches in the part the words ``Bosch ---number Made in W Germany``. Subsequently the the cup is attached with means of two clamps which are made by a small press(the kind you see in book binding shops in India to press pages of a book in place) by a uneducated woman of 63 working in the same factory doing the same work for the last 26 years(I think she is still working) earning the same daily wages earned by all other unskilled labour.

A statistical quality check is done in metal impacts and the pieces are stuck with the quality sticker of BOSCH and packed in retail Packaging and put in Boxes and dispactched to MICO which does nothing except attach a sticker on the big box of hand primers and a QC check at random on statistical basis. It waits till it has a container load and then Dispaches it to BOSCH Germany.

Metal Impacts also manufacutrers for 2 of Boschs compettiors in Germany. Usually these manufacturers insist that Metal Impacts should not have any kind of relation with their compettiors. A farcial scene takes palce whenever the germans come for Inspection in Metal Impacts all the compettitors products are removed from the premises and there seems to be no oursoucing of work with all work bieng done on the usually Idle Lathes in the factory. All documents are removed from sight which may point to a compettiors name.
However the germans are not unaware of what is going on but they also let the matter go.

You can see that people are not so shy of exporting anything to US given half a chance or even a very slim chance. Nothing great about exporting to US companes. It is old hat in India only the educated white collar lost in the woods people are in of US or its companies.
As you can see that people have been making attempts for decades to improve their business and capabilites while you have been ranting about the third world imbeciles.

While the business in the west come to respect such entrepruners they im sure will only show comtempt towards people like you who are nothing but vemonus armchair critics of their own people.

#58 by Layman on June 9, 2003 6:24am PT

ditto on training and bus charges.

dost-mittar

Really enjoyed reading your article dost-mittar ji. I had gone for a hiking trip in rajisthan a couple of years back, close to Jaisalmer. It was a wonderful experience it’s a beautiful part of the country. We used to pitch camp near remote villages, often miles away from a road. These people made a living by raising cattle and catering to groups of hikers like our group that did not want to take the usual touristy trails. One thing that struck me was that they had computers, just one or two for the village. They were not well educated but were smart enough to realize that they have to invest in their future. They used to trade in livestock on their computers. I had a similar experience in Arunachal Pradesh which I think is the most beautiful part of the country.

Regards,

Faruk

bbabu, Hegde I think lost out because he was `involved` in a telephone tapping case - it was never proved. Anyways, he belonged to the wrong caste (brahmin) in a state dominated by Vokkaligas and Lingayats. He became CM in the first place as a compromise candidate, because the two communities` politicians could not agree upon a leader.
Dost-mittarji, a good article. I would however like to point out two inaccuracies, as I have been to the Infosys campus myself: Infosys employees spend about two to three weeks a year on training, not one third of the year - no company can make money if employees needed to be training 33% of the time. Secondly, Infosys employees pay for the `bus` transport, it is not subsidised by the company - afaik.

hamidm2 #48

I agree with some of your criticisms of cottage industries. But there is always place for customization and localisation in industry. The idea is to train rural folks for such opportunities.

nadeemakr jee,

What you say is absolutely right. I`m sorry if nice Pakistanis like you got hurt by my intemperate remarks...I dont bear any malice towards you- or your country or most of your countrymen....

...though, I must admit; the mischevious brahmin streak in me likes to raise the hackels of these indomitable marital race-types---the TRUE sons of God, the real paragons of Islamic virtues...there are a few such cartoon characters on Chowk...its fun to imagine their fair, handsome, (though unwashed) faces, turn red & gnash their teeth when I expose them for what they are---sanctimonious hypocrites..

...at the VERY least, I have managed to prove (to myself; atleast) that the MOST IDIOTIC cartoon character on Chowk--our ``one & only`` 12 HEAD; (one of his ``avatars`` on this thread is Studebaker) is (most probably) an idiotic Pakistani muslim from frikking Lalukheth; who went to Ghanchakkar Medical College in bfk-ed Gilgit!!!

...heheheh!! the bakra went for my bait like a rat to cheese....

like we brahmins say....there are several ways to skin a stupid katloo!:)))

Jay:
You are right about education being the real driver of progress. But let me say a word of praise for that much maligned species on chowk - the south Indian brahmin. Despite their arrogance, these brahmins had their virtues. The brahminical culture at its best, as practised in the South, stood among other things, for discipline, rigour, austerity in food and clothing, and hard work. I dont envy the life of a brahmin boy a generation ago - the poor fellow probably never knew the meaning of the word ``fun``. When the positive discrimination against brahmins took hold in the South, these attributes came handy for these brahmin kids. Most of them belonged to lower middle class. Many of them migrated outside Madras and shone on the basis of competition. Their earlier skills of memorising vedas and rigours of learning came quite handy in secular academic learning.
It is not a coincidence, I think, that South Indian brahmins dominate the IT industry. All five founders of Infosys, I believe, are Tamil Brahmins and are continuing their brahminical traditions, sans arrogance, in their newly found organization.

shankar:
Have fun in Mumbai. I am told that the Ambani complex in Navi Mumbai also provides enviable amenities for the Reliance staff. Maybe you could pay a visit to your old friends there:-)

hamidm,

{{.......... let us not get hung up on idealistic nonsense about preserving our cultural heritage and local industries - there is no demand for cheap khadar spun on a hand wheel or putrid goat milk ...........}}

Touche!

Since you are destined to live out your afterlife in Hell...esp the Hindoo part of Hell; if I ever have the pleasure & honor of meeting you there---I swear to Allah I will buy you some boiling hot saki in a cheap bordello--

er...maybe bordellos in Hell are just like ``cages``...hindoo Bombay is full of `em (managed, owned & operated by TRUE muslims underworld dons) who subsequently invest that money in Karachi...the soon to be crowning culutral, economic, educational & spiritual capital of the world.

I mean, I can get the Field Marshall/Pope/Nostradamus/Polyanna to present undeniable facts that the future of Pakistan & Karachi (or was it Gwadar) never looked brighter!!...

Incidentally, where`s that PoKer dissappeared to these days?!...feeling sorry for himself & his people in a frikking foxhole in Gilgit....
Aw, never mind...in a few days Polyanna will be back with his sunny disposition...trying to convince Chowkies to invest in a Time Share or Club Med in PoK---who CARES if there`s no TV, no electricity, bars, nightclubs, casinos or karaoke in the Paradise called PoK---the sceneray is beautiful & the local population is very very happy...

#51 by hrrehman on June 8, 2003 9:05pm PT

[I can`t figure it out if India is an emerging power or a dying empire which has already seen it`s hayday in the mogul era.]

Dumb-ass, one portion of the Indian sub-continent is the former, while the other is the latter. Got it, or would you like me to elaborate further?