Random musings on a holiday.

John F Kennedy Airport in New York city. Am waiting in transit for my next flight as I write this. JFK is one of the bigger and more important airports in this country, the main hub of Delta Airlines. An airport where all major airlines service.. Even though Delta is the king out here, we see all the major and some obscure airlines apparently jostle for space in its many terminals. And amidst every other airline, I see the proud Maharaja in his proud Red-Orange hues standing out in the crowd. Air India - do I sense some pride out here. 2 Gleaming new, all white wide body Boeing 777 jetliner flying straight down to Delhi and Mumbai respectively. I know this will be my return trip. The JFK-DEL flight that reaches Delhi at approx 5 pm. IGI- ahaaaa. C'mon it’s still a couple of months away, I say to myself. Well but it’s just that!!!!

We live in a world of stereotypes. Everything has a stereotype, some with and some without any reason whatsoever. Like, for example the track and field sprint this takes a very racist overtone. We haven’t seen a white sprinter burn up the race tracks . Carl Lewis, Ben Johnson, Leroy Burell, Linford Christie, Justin Gatlin (yikes), Maurice Green, Asafa Powell, Usain Bolt. Phew the list is long. What’s common between them? Other than the colour of their skin, zilch! In the same lines there are a few stereotypes about India and Indians. Indian Cuisine is predominantly synonymous with Chicken Tandoori and Chicken Tikka Masala with the occasional sprinkling of Palak Paneer. Its a land of Call Centers where Prakash becomes Patrick and Preeti becomes Patricia and handles all banking, technical and sundry problems of Western customers. And its the land of Code Mongers (A slightly reassuring term for the more obscene Code Monkey).

Accept it or not this is precisely what a majority of the West perceives India as. And not all of it is unfounded. Yes a vast majority of Americans go to bed with the fear of their job being "Bangalored". A commonly used verb that’s used to describe the scenario wherein the low tech job of the person has been shipped to a third world nation as a cost cutting exercise. And yes with this emerges a new culture in our country - that of the call centers; A motley crew of youngsters working support calls in graveyard shifts in cities spread across the length and breadth of the country.

Coming to the subject at hand, that of the Code Mongers. Let’s use the acronym CM. CM is somehow a term acquired for all the low to mid end IT work that the Indian or India based software companies. Sometimes even more crudely referred to as (cock)roach shops somehow they seem to have a semblance to the sweat shops of yore and not the swanky offices that we have. Where dull headed people live breathe and sleep code but sadly drink only beer!!!!! Where people don’t play, are outright boring and don’t speak proper English and have very bad sense of personal hygiene. Their hobbies include either
1> searching for (better paying) jobs
2> visiting matrimonial websites in search of that elusive partner
3> Cribbing about life in general and the job in particular.

And till now I would have felt all these are pretty dumbfounded. Firstly neither do I consider myself being exactly dull headed nor do I have any of the aforementioned hobbies. But as I see the person sitting in front of me carrying a Microsoft backpack and take out a Database design handbook to read at leisure maybe all of that is not unfounded..... I mean I can understand the techie bit and the fact that you are married to the job but reading database design while sitting in transit…..

Am just happy , being a rank outsider to this entire circus, reading “The Outsider”