ceasersvault

Information technology in India

Its a popular joke that when you walk on any Indian street every other person you meet would be an IT professional. With globalization and open market economy introduced into India in 1992 by a visionary finance minister who is the current prime minister of India, the country has in a short period of 15 years established for itself a complete monopoly in the industry of IT.

Its interesting and perhaps quite alarming the way every Indian youth today aspires to be an IT professional. Its as though all of a sudden all the Indian youth seems to be good at is just one thing, writing software code! I wonder if the very people who take up the profession realize they are doing this mostly out of peer pressure than real interest. Evidence for this is on the rise as more IT professionals in India confess to be victims of stress and mental turbulence, even a whole new trend of suicides and attempted suicides!

So what led to this dangerous state of affairs? If you are someone who is not familiar with the economy and social setup in India I should start by saying that about 95% of people living in most Indian cities belong to the middle class, a majority of whom struggled all their way to the life they have today. For these individuals, all their memories till date are filled with events in life where they struggled to make ends meet with their meager 4 digit salaries they earned even after years of service. Money, or rather shortage of money has been a pivotal point around which their life has revolved, and they knowingly or not passed on most of the same stigma to their kids. So it shouldn't be surprising when the same kids when faced with the prospect of earning 5 and 6 digit salaries find themselves carried away from any aspirations or dreams they carried.(If at all they bothered to find out where their heart lay at all. )

So is this a good thing or a bad thing? Probably I just did a major disservice to the industry that has earned me whatever I possess today, even though that is an extremely modest much. But we should not try to ignore that fact that we might be losing out a lot of talent in our young and booming country to a profession that, to remain honest to my word, I should profess doesn't need much of brains to be a part of. Probably our present day Ramanujans and CV Ramans and wasting away writing java and .net code for Walmart and JC Penny!

When I write this article I look upon myself and call me the greatest hypocrite to be born on earth. I ask myself what stopped me in choosing something of my liking, something where my heart lies. Well I can tell you the answer is simple. I didn't know where my heart lied, still cant name one thing that I feel I should have chased to the end of my passion. And having asked this question to almost every friend of mine who is a part of IT I know each and every one of them feels just the same.

So do I feel miserable being here? Definitely not. I feel like this was where I was always destined to be. I feel I couldn't have done better anywhere else than here. So to be frank I really have no regrets of being here at all. But would I advise my sister or my kids(some day when I have them) to aspire to enter the IT industry? HELL NO!!! I cant let this happen to another one of my kin!

posted by Mahesh Vijayamohanan @ 5:37 PM