Wednesday, March 29, 2006
God's Own Country ---Kerala (Kumarakom)
These pictures were taken by my friends when we went to kumarakom way back in 2004
Monday, March 27, 2006
AGCD: America Gone Confused Desi- Back in India
Scare relatives by giving them frenzied electronic items like Electric Razor, Robot vacuum machine and scare the hell out of them explaining how it works.
Prefer tin coke instead of soda bottle coke and think tin coke is cool when you pay more for less quantity.
Call a friend and ask for appointment/expect the appointments for a casual visit.
Complain about not having lanes in road system to friend as if driven in laned roads.
Listen acknowledging with huhumm, hahhan instead of our traditional hmmm.
Carry a laptop to office without any use of it.
Have a flip type mobile with ringer tone of some unknown english song.
Stop and Wait for pedestrians to cross while driving car even in small Indian roads listening to the honks behind.
Donate at least 10 rs to a beggar.
Always say yup or yep instead of yes.
Cry wazzup buddy / baby when meeting friends.
Wear a thick half trouser tucking in T-shirt (with a small tummy) even
when going to meet relatives.
Play/watch tennis, basket ball, baseball, F1 race.
Always take cold coffee...buy Tropicana.
Say thank you to servant maid even for any small help.
Try saying Soccer when football (deep down the heart it is still football).
Tries to look out for Clorex in super market.
Just for the sake of it try entering car in right hand side and say "ooooh ..." as if u right from birth driven car in right hand side.
Tries to use credit card in road side hotel.
Drinks and carries mineral water and always speak of health conscious.
Sprays deo such so that he doesn't need to take bath.
Sneezes and says 'Excuse me' Says 'Bless you' when someone does.
Says "Hey" instead of "Hi"
Says "Yogurt" instead of saying "Curd"
Says "Cab" instead of "Taxi"
Says "Candy" instead of "Chocolate"
Says "Cookie" instead of "Biscuit"
Says "Free Way" instead of "Highway"
Says "got to go" instead of "Have to go"
Says "Oh" instead of "Zero", (for 704, says Seven Oh Four Instead of Seven Zero Four
Doesn't forget to crib about air pollution: Keeps cribbing every time he steps out.
Says all the distances in Miles (Not in Kilo Meters) and counts in Millions(Not in Lakhs)
Tries to figure all the prices in Dollars as far as possible
(but deep down the heart multiplies by 43 times).
Tries to see the % of fat on the cover of a milk pocket.
When need to say Z (zed, never says Z (Zed, repeats "Zee"
several times, if the other person unable to get, then says X, Y Zee(but never says Zed)
Writes date as MM/DD/YYYY, on watching traditional DD/MM/YYYY, says "Oh! British Style!!!!"
Makes fun of Indian Standard Time and Indian Road Conditions.
Even after 2 months, complaints about "Jet Lag".
Avoids eating more chili (hot stuff).
Tries to drink "Diet Coke", instead of Normal Coke.
Tries to complain about any thing in India as if he is experiencing it for the first time.
Pronounces "schedule" as "skejule", and "module" as "Mojule".
Looks speciously towards Hotel/Dhaba food.
From the luggage bag, does not remove the stickers of Airways by which he traveled back to India, even after 4 months of arrival.
Takes the cabin luggage bag to short visits in India, tries to roll the bag on Indian Roads and Railway platforms.
Ultimate one
Tries to begin conversation with "In US ...:" or "When I was in US..."
Prefer tin coke instead of soda bottle coke and think tin coke is cool when you pay more for less quantity.
Call a friend and ask for appointment/expect the appointments for a casual visit.
Complain about not having lanes in road system to friend as if driven in laned roads.
Listen acknowledging with huhumm, hahhan instead of our traditional hmmm.
Carry a laptop to office without any use of it.
Have a flip type mobile with ringer tone of some unknown english song.
Stop and Wait for pedestrians to cross while driving car even in small Indian roads listening to the honks behind.
Donate at least 10 rs to a beggar.
Always say yup or yep instead of yes.
Cry wazzup buddy / baby when meeting friends.
Wear a thick half trouser tucking in T-shirt (with a small tummy) even
when going to meet relatives.
Play/watch tennis, basket ball, baseball, F1 race.
Always take cold coffee...buy Tropicana.
Say thank you to servant maid even for any small help.
Try saying Soccer when football (deep down the heart it is still football).
Tries to look out for Clorex in super market.
Just for the sake of it try entering car in right hand side and say "ooooh ..." as if u right from birth driven car in right hand side.
Tries to use credit card in road side hotel.
Drinks and carries mineral water and always speak of health conscious.
Sprays deo such so that he doesn't need to take bath.
Sneezes and says 'Excuse me' Says 'Bless you' when someone does.
Says "Hey" instead of "Hi"
Says "Yogurt" instead of saying "Curd"
Says "Cab" instead of "Taxi"
Says "Candy" instead of "Chocolate"
Says "Cookie" instead of "Biscuit"
Says "Free Way" instead of "Highway"
Says "got to go" instead of "Have to go"
Says "Oh" instead of "Zero", (for 704, says Seven Oh Four Instead of Seven Zero Four
Doesn't forget to crib about air pollution: Keeps cribbing every time he steps out.
Says all the distances in Miles (Not in Kilo Meters) and counts in Millions(Not in Lakhs)
Tries to figure all the prices in Dollars as far as possible
(but deep down the heart multiplies by 43 times).
Tries to see the % of fat on the cover of a milk pocket.
When need to say Z (zed, never says Z (Zed, repeats "Zee"
several times, if the other person unable to get, then says X, Y Zee(but never says Zed)
Writes date as MM/DD/YYYY, on watching traditional DD/MM/YYYY, says "Oh! British Style!!!!"
Makes fun of Indian Standard Time and Indian Road Conditions.
Even after 2 months, complaints about "Jet Lag".
Avoids eating more chili (hot stuff).
Tries to drink "Diet Coke", instead of Normal Coke.
Tries to complain about any thing in India as if he is experiencing it for the first time.
Pronounces "schedule" as "skejule", and "module" as "Mojule".
Looks speciously towards Hotel/Dhaba food.
From the luggage bag, does not remove the stickers of Airways by which he traveled back to India, even after 4 months of arrival.
Takes the cabin luggage bag to short visits in India, tries to roll the bag on Indian Roads and Railway platforms.
Ultimate one
Tries to begin conversation with "In US ...:" or "When I was in US..."
If you are an American....
You know how baseball, basketball, and American football are played. If you're male, you can argue intricate points about their rules.
You count yourself fortunate if you get three weeks of vacation a year.
If you died tonight... You're fairly likely to believe in God; if not, you've certainly been approached by people asking whether you know that you're going to Heaven.
You think of McDonald's, Burger King, KFC etc. as cheap food.
You probably own a telephone and a TV. Your place is heated in the winter and has its own bathroom. You do your laundry in a machine. You don't kill your own food.
You don't have a dirt floor. You eat at a table, sitting on chairs.
You don't consider insects, dogs, cats, monkeys, or guinea pigs to be food.
It seems natural to you that the telephone system, railroads, auto manufacturers, airlines, and power companies are privately run; indeed, you can hardly picture things working differently.
The train system, by contrast, isn't very good. Trains don't go any faster than cars; you're better off taking a plane.
You don't expect to hear socialism seriously defended.
Between "black" and "white" there are no other races. Someone with one black and one white parent looks black to you.
You think most problems could be solved if only people would put aside their prejudices and work together.
You take a strong court system for granted, even if you don't use it. You know that if you went into business and had problems with a customer, partner, or supplier, you could take them to court.
You'd respect someone who speaks French, German, or Japanese-- but you very likely don't yourself speak them well enough to communicate with a monolingual foreigner. You're a bit more ambivalent about Spanish; you think the schools should teach kids English.
It's not all that necessary to learn foreign languages anyway. You can travel the continent using nothing but English-- and get by pretty well in the rest of the world, too.
You think a tax level of 30% is scandalously high.
School is free through high school (at least, it's an option, even if you went to private school); college isn't, unless you get a scholarship.
College is (normally, and excluding graduate study) four years long.
Everybody knows that
Mustard comes in jars. Shaving cream comes in cans. Milk comes in plastic jugs or cardboard boxes, and occasionally in bottles.
The date comes second: 11/22/06. (And you know what happened on that date.)
The decimal point is a dot. Certainly not a comma.
A billion is a thousand times a million.
World War II was a just war, and (granted all the suffering of course) ended all right. It was a time when the country came together and did what was right. And instead of insisting on vengeance, the US very generously rebuilt Europe instead, with the Marshall Plan.
You expect marriages to be made for love, not arranged by third parties. Getting married by a judge is an option, but not a requirement; most marriages happen in church. You have a best man and a maid or matron of honor at the wedding-- a friend or a sibling. And, naturally, a man gets only one wife at a time.
Once you're introduced to someone (well, besides the President and other lofty figures), you can call them by their first name.
You'd rather a film be subtitled than dubbed (if you go to foreign films at all).
You seriously expect to be able to transact business, or deal with the government, without paying bribes.
If a politican has been cheating on his wife, you would question his ability to govern.
Just about any store will take your credit card.
A company can fire just about anybody it wants, unless it discriminates by doing so.
You like your bacon crisp (unless it's Canadian bacon, of course).
You talk more about cookies than eating them.
Contributions to world civilization
You've probably seen Star Wars, ET, Home Alone, Casablanca, and Snow White. If you're under forty, add Blazing Saddles, Terminator, Jaws, and 2001; otherwise, add Gone with the Wind, A Night at the Opera, Psycho, and Citizen Kane.
You count on excellent medical treatment. You know you're not going to die of cholera or other Third World diseases. You expect very strong measures to be taken to save very ill babies or people in their eighties. You think dying at 65 would be a tragedy.
You went over US history, and some European, in school, Not much Russian, Chinese, or Latin American. You couldn't name ten US interventions in Latin America.
You expect the military to fight wars, not get involved in politics. You may not be able to name the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Your country has never been conquered by a foreign nation.
You're used to a wide variety of choices for almost anything you buy.
You consider your car as your wife and wife as car. you wont allow anyone to drive your own car...not even touch it.
You still measure things in feet, pounds, and gallons.
You are not a farmer.
The people who appear on the most popular talk shows are mostly entertainers, politicians, or rather strange individuals. Certainly not, say, authors.
You drive on the right side of the road. You stop at red lights even if nobody's around. If you're a pedestrian and cars are stopped at a red light, you will fearlessly cross the street in front of them. You never honk unless someone makes a shit.
You consider the Volkswagen Beetle to be a small car.
The police are armed, but not with submachine guns.
The biggest meal of the day is in the evening.
There's parts of the city you definitely want to avoid at night.
You feel that your kind of people aren't being listened to enough in Washington.
You wouldn't expect both inflation and unemployment to be very high (say, over 15%) at the same time.
The normal thing, when a couple dies, is for their estate to be divided equally between their children.
You think of opera and ballet as rather elite entertainments. It's likely you don't see that many plays, either.
Christmas is in the winter. Unless you're Jewish, you spend it with your family, give presents, and put up a tree.
You may think the church is too powerful, or the state is; but you are used to not having a state church and don't think that it would be a good idea.
You'd be hard pressed to name the capitals or the leaders of all the nations of Europe.
You've left a message at the beep.
Taxis are generally operated by foreigners, who are often deplorably ignorant about the city.
You are distrustful of welfare and unemployment payments-- you think people should earn a living and not take handouts. But you would not be in favor of eliminating Social Security and Medicare.
If you want to be a doctor, you need to get a bachelor's first.
Space and time
If you have an appointment, you'll mutter an excuse if you're five minutes late, and apologize profusely if it's ten minutes. An hour late is almost inexcusable.
If you're talking to someone, you get uncomfortable if they approach closer than about two feet.
About the only things you expect to bargain for are houses, cars, and antiques.
Once you're past college, you very rarely simply show up at someone's place. People have to invite each other over-- especially if a meal is involved.
When you negotiate, you are polite, of course, but it's only good business to 'play hardball'.
If you have a business appointment or interview with someone, you expect to have that person to yourself, and the business shouldn't take more than an hour or so.
You count yourself fortunate if you get three weeks of vacation a year.
If you died tonight... You're fairly likely to believe in God; if not, you've certainly been approached by people asking whether you know that you're going to Heaven.
You think of McDonald's, Burger King, KFC etc. as cheap food.
You probably own a telephone and a TV. Your place is heated in the winter and has its own bathroom. You do your laundry in a machine. You don't kill your own food.
You don't have a dirt floor. You eat at a table, sitting on chairs.
You don't consider insects, dogs, cats, monkeys, or guinea pigs to be food.
It seems natural to you that the telephone system, railroads, auto manufacturers, airlines, and power companies are privately run; indeed, you can hardly picture things working differently.
The train system, by contrast, isn't very good. Trains don't go any faster than cars; you're better off taking a plane.
You don't expect to hear socialism seriously defended.
Between "black" and "white" there are no other races. Someone with one black and one white parent looks black to you.
You think most problems could be solved if only people would put aside their prejudices and work together.
You take a strong court system for granted, even if you don't use it. You know that if you went into business and had problems with a customer, partner, or supplier, you could take them to court.
You'd respect someone who speaks French, German, or Japanese-- but you very likely don't yourself speak them well enough to communicate with a monolingual foreigner. You're a bit more ambivalent about Spanish; you think the schools should teach kids English.
It's not all that necessary to learn foreign languages anyway. You can travel the continent using nothing but English-- and get by pretty well in the rest of the world, too.
You think a tax level of 30% is scandalously high.
School is free through high school (at least, it's an option, even if you went to private school); college isn't, unless you get a scholarship.
College is (normally, and excluding graduate study) four years long.
Everybody knows that
Mustard comes in jars. Shaving cream comes in cans. Milk comes in plastic jugs or cardboard boxes, and occasionally in bottles.
The date comes second: 11/22/06. (And you know what happened on that date.)
The decimal point is a dot. Certainly not a comma.
A billion is a thousand times a million.
World War II was a just war, and (granted all the suffering of course) ended all right. It was a time when the country came together and did what was right. And instead of insisting on vengeance, the US very generously rebuilt Europe instead, with the Marshall Plan.
You expect marriages to be made for love, not arranged by third parties. Getting married by a judge is an option, but not a requirement; most marriages happen in church. You have a best man and a maid or matron of honor at the wedding-- a friend or a sibling. And, naturally, a man gets only one wife at a time.
Once you're introduced to someone (well, besides the President and other lofty figures), you can call them by their first name.
You'd rather a film be subtitled than dubbed (if you go to foreign films at all).
You seriously expect to be able to transact business, or deal with the government, without paying bribes.
If a politican has been cheating on his wife, you would question his ability to govern.
Just about any store will take your credit card.
A company can fire just about anybody it wants, unless it discriminates by doing so.
You like your bacon crisp (unless it's Canadian bacon, of course).
You talk more about cookies than eating them.
Contributions to world civilization
You've probably seen Star Wars, ET, Home Alone, Casablanca, and Snow White. If you're under forty, add Blazing Saddles, Terminator, Jaws, and 2001; otherwise, add Gone with the Wind, A Night at the Opera, Psycho, and Citizen Kane.
You count on excellent medical treatment. You know you're not going to die of cholera or other Third World diseases. You expect very strong measures to be taken to save very ill babies or people in their eighties. You think dying at 65 would be a tragedy.
You went over US history, and some European, in school, Not much Russian, Chinese, or Latin American. You couldn't name ten US interventions in Latin America.
You expect the military to fight wars, not get involved in politics. You may not be able to name the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Your country has never been conquered by a foreign nation.
You're used to a wide variety of choices for almost anything you buy.
You consider your car as your wife and wife as car. you wont allow anyone to drive your own car...not even touch it.
You still measure things in feet, pounds, and gallons.
You are not a farmer.
The people who appear on the most popular talk shows are mostly entertainers, politicians, or rather strange individuals. Certainly not, say, authors.
You drive on the right side of the road. You stop at red lights even if nobody's around. If you're a pedestrian and cars are stopped at a red light, you will fearlessly cross the street in front of them. You never honk unless someone makes a shit.
You consider the Volkswagen Beetle to be a small car.
The police are armed, but not with submachine guns.
The biggest meal of the day is in the evening.
There's parts of the city you definitely want to avoid at night.
You feel that your kind of people aren't being listened to enough in Washington.
You wouldn't expect both inflation and unemployment to be very high (say, over 15%) at the same time.
The normal thing, when a couple dies, is for their estate to be divided equally between their children.
You think of opera and ballet as rather elite entertainments. It's likely you don't see that many plays, either.
Christmas is in the winter. Unless you're Jewish, you spend it with your family, give presents, and put up a tree.
You may think the church is too powerful, or the state is; but you are used to not having a state church and don't think that it would be a good idea.
You'd be hard pressed to name the capitals or the leaders of all the nations of Europe.
You've left a message at the beep.
Taxis are generally operated by foreigners, who are often deplorably ignorant about the city.
You are distrustful of welfare and unemployment payments-- you think people should earn a living and not take handouts. But you would not be in favor of eliminating Social Security and Medicare.
If you want to be a doctor, you need to get a bachelor's first.
Space and time
If you have an appointment, you'll mutter an excuse if you're five minutes late, and apologize profusely if it's ten minutes. An hour late is almost inexcusable.
If you're talking to someone, you get uncomfortable if they approach closer than about two feet.
About the only things you expect to bargain for are houses, cars, and antiques.
Once you're past college, you very rarely simply show up at someone's place. People have to invite each other over-- especially if a meal is involved.
When you negotiate, you are polite, of course, but it's only good business to 'play hardball'.
If you have a business appointment or interview with someone, you expect to have that person to yourself, and the business shouldn't take more than an hour or so.
Friday, March 24, 2006
Cinema, Fries, Latte ---- Instant Reviews
Mercury Pookal : Adviced for Aspiring Bachelors. Good One.
Jasmine another beautiful flower.
My school buddy kurinjinathan plays a role in the movie as a friend to srikanth and makes some mimicry-comedy in the movie.
Chithiram Pesuthadi : Charithiram Pesuthadi. Good one.
Pattiyal : Pithamagan part 2. But vikram and surya were way ahead.
Thambi : Maddy wears a rahman hair style. Good action movie.
Maddy acting not that good.
One Dialogue --> Maanai sutta jail la poduranga , Manusanai sutta bail la viduranga .
Kalaba Kathalan : First half not adviced for bachelors. Second half---A bad message.
Kalvanin Kathali : Another crap movie from SJ Surya.
Who told him that he is acting good. Nayan Tara , A dream wife
Kovai Brothers : Thanks to my american life.Ithellam parka vendiyiruku.
Madarasi : Another action movie
Kodambakkam : A senti movie. but ok to watch once.
Idhaya Thirudan : Time waste
Saravana : Mokkai poduran simbu
Jasmine another beautiful flower.
My school buddy kurinjinathan plays a role in the movie as a friend to srikanth and makes some mimicry-comedy in the movie.
Chithiram Pesuthadi : Charithiram Pesuthadi. Good one.
Pattiyal : Pithamagan part 2. But vikram and surya were way ahead.
Thambi : Maddy wears a rahman hair style. Good action movie.
Maddy acting not that good.
One Dialogue --> Maanai sutta jail la poduranga , Manusanai sutta bail la viduranga .
Kalaba Kathalan : First half not adviced for bachelors. Second half---A bad message.
Kalvanin Kathali : Another crap movie from SJ Surya.
Who told him that he is acting good. Nayan Tara , A dream wife
Kovai Brothers : Thanks to my american life.Ithellam parka vendiyiruku.
Madarasi : Another action movie
Kodambakkam : A senti movie. but ok to watch once.
Idhaya Thirudan : Time waste
Saravana : Mokkai poduran simbu
Local News
Sk Srinivasan left to India March 24th
My College Buddy Vinoth raj got married on Mar 2nd
My Anni gave birth to a baby girl on Feb 26
My Hexaware Buddy Hema gave birth to a baby girl.
My College Buddy Vinoth raj got married on Mar 2nd
My Anni gave birth to a baby girl on Feb 26
My Hexaware Buddy Hema gave birth to a baby girl.
Thursday, March 23, 2006
Yen Ayal Desa Vazhkai-----Chennai To Newark
Started from India in the midnight through Lufthansa aircraft, soma, bai, kk, hari, kosu, subbu, yoge, dinesh, anni‘s amma appa came to the airport. Went in early as kk was pinging me that I’ll be catching the flight in the runway. Checked in the baggage and it was 6kgs less than permissible limit. Waited in the lounge before boarding and hence called up home and kk and spoke with them for sometime. Then took a costly coffee in Chennai airport, the last essence of the drink from my Thai mannu.
Boarded the flight and sat in a place where the next seat was free. There was a partial I would say a racial treatment in the Lufthansa flight because they didn’t ask me whether I’ll drink any liquor. I was taking orange juice and apple juice with the cuisines the classic way as the hostess was calling it. Then went to the rest room and found it difficult the madhaavan way , used the tissue papers. There was a painful 5 hrs transit in the Frankfurt airport. Was scolding kk since he didn’t give me the contact list printed which I sent him thru email. Hence I couldn’t call bala, my school friend who is in Germany during the transit time. Was roaming around the airport lounge and shopping malls, Had coffee in the lounge coffee bar with whoever Indians I met there. I disturbed a couple who are about to get married in India on their way from Ger. They were talking in Tamil and took the rights to disturb them, the guy is a scientist in a German university and the girl is pursuing studies there. He should be proud to introduce himself as a scientist. I would have. Then had a coffee latte which is like the Indian coffee with another Indian who is on his way towards India and he was in US for 8 yrs. Was telling me that the pay packs in India have raised and nowadays he cud see only less no of Indians coming on H1. Then was talking with another Indian who is on his way to Texas Austin and hence we had another coffee latte. All these coffees are in a span of 5 hrs. But the real wonder is, I didn’t pay for any of these coffees. I don’t know how to pay even if they ask me to pay. I had $200 as two $100 dollar bills. Then i became tired and hence sat on the floor like our central railway station and was reading a sujatha’s book for sometime.
Then boarded the connecting flight to Newark, some call it nay wark or some as new wark, some how landed in the privileged country. My taxi guy made me wait in the airport for 30 mins. I was looking for name boards carrying my name as in movies…but I was made to call him to the airport, hence bought a coffee in the Newark airport to get some change. For making a call it is 1 dollar as four quarters, but I had only 2. Hence seeing my situation, another taxi driver gave me another 2 quarters to complete the call. Before I started from Chennai that evening it was raining and after I reached Newark, it was raining again. At last started from the airport and cab driver whose name is Joe (he‘s an Egyptian) stopped in a house (oru kaatu bangala), I thought he is going to check for the directions. But he said this is your guest house and asked me to take my baggage in. one guy was there in the guest house and he introduced himself as Mahesh(manavadu). I kept the baggage inside and got introduced to him. Will continue....
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
My German Experiences
About the Nation:
The Country is rich because they invaded other nations and war was their only business.
Only after World War II, they started developing in all technologies and they way they built their nation is well planned. This country cannot be compared with Japan, as they are rich enough through invasion when they started building their nation while Japan rose from ashes.
About Racism and Nazism:
Its not here anymore and people are very friendly and helpful and they never discriminate people from their skin color. May be previous generations would have been as I thought. I heard that it is still there in some eastern parts of Germany. Nazism and Hitler’s thoughts are no more here and people here hate talking about that.
About the Climate:
The climate is very cool here when I landed there, was about –7 C and luckily I escaped from the winter when it went to the extreme about –18 C. Mostly north east and south west German cities experience heavy cold and snow and Frankfurt is in the central Germany which is a bit moderate. I was staying in Bad Homburg, some half n hr from Frankfurt and was a good place.
About the Population:
The population is very less and it is in the decreasing curve. People here don’t want any commitment in their life; hence no concept of marriage and everyone live with their friend. In all the public transport vehicles, the group ticket for 5 is cheaper that buying tickets for 2 individuals. The govt. is happy to see groups of people in trains and buses than individuals, giving good tax concessions for people who have 2 or more children.
About the People:
Old Aryans came from Germany, this is mythology. These people are really western and they look completely different. I can accept people from Spain, Hungary and Netherlands to look like Aryans i.e. our typical north Indians. Here female ratio is more than male and Indian girls who have settled here look pretty. People very rarely use two wheelers and mostly you can find some modified version of Scooty. All others use only cars here and they religiously follow the traffic rules. Pedestrians have more respect than car drivers in the road and the cars will stop till you cross the road. -Now only I started feeling the advantage of less population and cool weather to make you wait in traffic signals and people here never use horns and will scold you if you use. Most of the Taxi drivers here are from other nations esp. Pakistan, turkey and Afghanistan .All of them drive very decently and we get the Quittung (receipt) for claiming after paying them. Typical Germans really look like steffi graf and Boris Becker as I have heard. People here are very much frugal spending money. They spend money only for food, car, petrol (called a benzin here) and wine. Cost of petrol is 1 Euro per litre and the bus ticket is 1.25 Euro, hence car is affordable and cost only 1000 Euro when you go for second hand. People here are very sturdy and walk very fast as if they are going to catch the next bus. But even though sometimes it’s true, people walk to home very swiftly. It was impossible for me to walk in the pace of an old man in the Frankfurt station. They keep up the time like anything. Even the professors are punctual and will start classes as perfect like trains. People here are very helpful and even the old aged try to understand English and help me. But one day I put my tongue out like a dog to ask for a tongue cleaner in a shopping plaza. People here will become very happy once they see the sun. Everyone come out of the houses during the weekends, go for walking with their pets.
About the Language:
Language is a great barrier here and people become very happy when you speak their language instead of English. If you really want to get along with people, you have to know the deutsche language.
About the food:
People here either eat cow or what the cow eats (I mean raw vegetables in the name of salads). Beef and Pork are their favorites and Pizza, burger of course. I ate beef once and most of the times took chicken and fish. Here no Indian restaurants and survival is a bit tough if you are a pure vegetarian and don’t know cooking. Only one jaipur restaurant was there nearby but not so good it seems. People here take spiceless food. When I tried some vegetarisch (vegetarian) dishes, all of them were some modified versions of Pastas and Pizzas. Some sandwiches had raw sliced meat inside.
The fruits and vegetables come from Turkey, as Germany is a cold country and not a good place for vegetation.
About Education and Industries:
Here education is excellent and free. But immigration and Job opportunities are closed for overseas students. Automobile and Electronics engineering are worthwhile studies and world best manufacturers are here. BMW, Mercedes Benz, Siemens and Opel speak proud of Germany.
Siemens employers in Germany are treated with high respect. Some twenty years back, people after finishing their schooling have to go either to social service or Army and have to serve the nation at least for 2 years. Only then they can for any other job. Almost all the professions are treated equally and almost all of them get the same salary on average. Hence even a garbage collector owns a car.
About the Public Transport:
Here trains and buses are timed as 9.09 or 10.37, which they maintain very perfectly. I was really wondering only about the bus timings if it has to wait in traffic signals and bus stops. If you didn’t see a 10.37 bus not coming at the same time, you can simply look for the next bus time as it could’ve been cancelled for the entire day. A single firm operates all the public transport vehicles and the tickets issue is automated hence no separate ticket for train/bus, you can use it for anything. Only few take tickets from the driver of the bus. Unlike americans , these people are real stylish. You can see a typical FTV costume modeling when any train comes to the station and people will be walking like that. Buses, Trams and trains can be distinguished by their lengths only. Here ICE trains are the ones, which look different and will travel across around Europe.
Festivals:
Christmas is the foremost festival for Germany. Then when we were there, 27th of Feb was celebrated as Carnival day where women have all the rights to do anything on guys. Here we used to harass girls during holi, the opposite way it happens there.
Shopping:
Hauptwache pronounced, as “hauptwaha” is the shopping area near Frankfurt. Then there’s a place where a shop called media mart, an electronic goods shopping plaza.
Sight Seeing:
Here you can find only museums and Castles. The Romans build most of them when they captured Europe at one point of time. Hiedelberg is a place one and half-hours from which has an old castle and which is not destroyed by the world war. Then there a hill over there, on top we went by a winch, on the top of which was like Swiss. Snow covered roads and they were very slippery. Rudesheim is another place for Vineyards. Bonn is the city built in the style of Russian architecture and looks a bit different.
Friday, March 10, 2006
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Budget 2006
ECONOMY
* Savings up 21.9% of GDP
* FY05 GDP growth was 7.5%
* Having best of times and worst of times
* GDP growth likely to be 8.1% in 2006-07
* Govt has met first aim of high growth rate
* Growth is best antidote to poverty
* Govt determined to take country to 10% growth rate
FISC
* Gross capital formation up 30% in 2004-05
* Non-food credit growing over 25%
* Investment rate up from 25.3% in FY03 to 30.1% in FY05
* 1.727 trln rupee budget support for plan, up 20.4% in FY07
* 1.312-trln-rupee budget support for central plan
* FY07 budgetary support for North East 120.41 bln rupees
* Outcome Budget to be presented on Mar 17
* Provide 169.01 bln rupees equity support to central PSUs
* 1.227 trln rupees outlay in FY07 for public sector
* 100 bln rupees corpus for RIDF-XII in FY07
* Separate window for rural roads under RIDF
* To unwind special securities by converting to SLR papers
* Defense allocation raised to 890 bln rupees FY07
* To provide 30 bln rupees as VAT compensation to states
* States' revenue share up at 944 billion rupees FY07
* Tax-GDP ratio 10.5% in FY06 vs 9.8% yr ago
* FY06 fiscal deficit revised to 4.1% of GDP vs 4.3%
* FY06 revenue deficit revised to 2.6% of GDP vs 2.7%
* FY07 non-plan expenditure seen at 3.91 trln rupees
* FY07 fiscal deficit pegged at 3.8% of GDP
* FY07 total expenditure pegged at 5.639 trln rupees
AGRICULTURE
* Foodgrain output 209.3 mln tns, up 5 mln tns over last yr
* Farm credit to be raised to 1.75 trillion rupees in FY07
* Banks asked to add 5 mln more farmers to credit portfolio
* Interest subsidy of 200 bps for farm loans taken 05-06
* To provide 17 bln rupees for farmers' relief
* Short-term credit to farmers at 7%
* Special new NABARD credit line for self-help groups
* Central institute of Horticulture to be set up in Nagaland
* Food processing to be priority sector for bank credit
* NABARD to set up 10 bln rupee centre for food processing
INDUSTRY
* Manufacturing sector to grow at 9.4% in 2006-07
* Barring mining, all sectors performing satisfactorily
* Set up special purpose tea fund with 1-bln-rupee corpus
* National Fisheries Board to be constituted soon
* 5.35 bln rupees in FY07 for textile upgradation scheme
* Jute Technology Mission, National Jute Board to be set up
* Govt proposes Handloom Mark
* To develop 3 investment regions for oil sector in FY07
* 180 SSI items identified for de-reservation
* To recognise small, medium enterprises in services sector
* For cut in SSI credit guarantee fee to 1.5% vs 2.5%
INFRASTRUCTURE
* Highway schemes progressing at 4.4 km/day
* 5,083 MW capacity to be added in 2005-06
* 96% of Golden Quadrilateral will be completed by Jun
* 870,000 rural houses built under Bharat Nirman
* 71,182 villages got telephones under Bharat Nirman
* 870,000 rural houses built in Apr-Jan
* Budget support of 186.96 bln rupees for Bharat Nirman FY07
* Education allocation up in FY07 to 241.54 bln rupees
* Sarva Siksha Abhyan outlay for FY07 at 100.41 bln rupees
* FY07 mid-day meal allocation 48.13 bln rupees
* Rural employment to cost 117 bln rupees in FY07
* FY07 drinking water outlay 46.8 bln rupees vs 36.45 bln
* 143 bln rupee outlay in FY07 for Rural Employment Scheme
* 45.95 bln rupee outlay for National Urban Mission in FY07
* 20,000 water bodies to covered under renewal plan
* Indian Infrastructure Investment Co to be established
* Tourism ministry to develop 15 tourist centres
* Set up empowered ministers' group on cluster development
* FY07 allocation for tourist sector 8.30 bln rupees
* 15 bln rupees in FY07 to boost telephone connectivity
* To electrify 40,000 more villages in FY07
* 82 new power projects underway
* To electrify 40,000 more villages in FY07
* 4.75% rise in power generation so far; govt not happy
* 5.97 bln rupee for non-conventional energy resources FY07
* 99.45 bln rupees budget support for NHDP in FY07
* To build 1,000 Kms of access controlled expressways
* 7.35 bln rupees for development of sea ports in FY07
* 1,000 Kms of new expressways on BOT basis
* Defense allocation includes 374.58 bln rupees for capex
SECTORS
* Committed to strong, efficient public sector
* Expert body to look into gems, jewellery sector taxation
* 20 bln tn coal to be deblocked for power sector by 2012
* 45 coal blocks allocated for power, coal, steel sectors
* 220 bln rupee investment expected in refinery sector
* Introduce comprehensive bill on insurance in FY07
DEBT MARKETS
* Cap on FII in gilts raised to $2 bln
* Cap on FII investment in corp debt raised to $1.5 bln
* To remove 10% cap on overseas investment by mutual funds
* NDS-OM to be extended to some MFS, PFs, pension funds
* To create unified exchange traded mkt for corporate bonds
SOCIAL SECTOR
* To eliminate polio by December 2007
* Leprosy to be eliminated by December 2006
* 45.95 bln rupee outlay for National Urban Mission in FY07
* To raise old age pension to 200 rupees/mo vs 75 rupees
* Allocation for SC/STs raised 14.5% to 29.02 bln rupees
* 20,000 merit scholarships for minority students
* 164 mln rupees for National Minorities Development Corp
* To grant 1 bln rupees each to 3 universities
* New grants to Calcutta, Madras, Mumbai universities
* To allocate 970 mln rupees for upgrading ITIs in FY07
* 50 bln rupees for new fund under Panchayati Raj in FY07
* 13 bln rupees special aid to J&K for power reforms
EXTERNAL SECTOR
* FDI estimated at $4 bln till Nov 2005
* Confident of more FDI, especially in infrastructure
* To double world export share to 1.5% by FY09
CUSTOMS DUTY
* Non-farm imports customs peak rate cut to 12.5% from 15%
* Duty on alloy steel cut to 7.5% from 10%
* Customs on steel melting scrap raised to 5%
* Import duty on ores, concentrates cut to 2% from 5%
* BUDGET: Customs duty on inorganic chemicals cut to 10% from 15%
* Customs on steel melting scrap raised to 5%
* Import duty on ores, concentrates cut to 2% from 5%
* Customs on mineral products cut to 5% vs 15%
* Duty on catalysts cut to 7% from 7.5%
* Customs duty on anti-AIDS, anti-cancer drugs cut to 5%
* Customs on packaging machines cut to 5% vs 15%
* To impose countervailing duty of 4% on oil imports
* Customs duty on vanaspati raised to 18%
* Import duty on man-made fibre yarn cut to 8% vs 18%
EXCISE DUTY
* All excise rates to converge at CENVAT rate at 16%
* Excise duty on small cars cut to 16%
* Condensed milk, ice-creams exempted from excise duty
* 8% excise on packaged software in FY07
* Excise on idly, dose premixes cut to 16%
* Excise duty on aerated drinks cut to 16%
* Excise on glassware will be 16%
* DVD, Flash, Combo drives exempted from excise duty
* Duty on naphtha on plastics to be nil
* Petroleum pdts duty measures to be retail price neutral
* Excise duty on printing paper, ink cut to 12% from 16%
* Excise on cigarettes hiked by 5%
SERVICE TAX
* More services brought under service tax net
* Registrars, share transfer agents under service tax net
* Service tax to be extended to PR firms
* ATM operation, maintenance to come under service tax
* Services industry seen contributing 54% of GDP
* Service tax raised to 12% from 10%
* Apr 1, 2010 deadline for national level goods, svcs tax
DIRECT TAX
* No change in personal, corporate income tax rates
* Minimum Alternate Tax rate up to 10% from 7.5%
* To abolish 1/6 income tax norm
* MAT cos' credit period extended to 7 years
* Rate for STT increased by 25%
* Bank deposits of over 5 year under section 80C of IT Act
* 10,000 rupee ceiling on pension contribution removed
* Open, close-end equity MFs on par for div distribution tax
* PAN needed for more transactions
* To continue with cash withdrawal tax
* Hopes debate on FBT ends; FBT is justified
* Announce changes in computation of fringe benefit tax
* Lauds cash withdrawal tax role in curbing money laundering
* Retirement contribution cap of 100,000 rupees for FBT
* To issue statement of revenue foregone
* Include LPG under declared goods for CST
* States taxing LPG at high rates
* BUDGET: Direct tax proposals to yield 40 bln rupees more FY07
* Savings up 21.9% of GDP
* FY05 GDP growth was 7.5%
* Having best of times and worst of times
* GDP growth likely to be 8.1% in 2006-07
* Govt has met first aim of high growth rate
* Growth is best antidote to poverty
* Govt determined to take country to 10% growth rate
FISC
* Gross capital formation up 30% in 2004-05
* Non-food credit growing over 25%
* Investment rate up from 25.3% in FY03 to 30.1% in FY05
* 1.727 trln rupee budget support for plan, up 20.4% in FY07
* 1.312-trln-rupee budget support for central plan
* FY07 budgetary support for North East 120.41 bln rupees
* Outcome Budget to be presented on Mar 17
* Provide 169.01 bln rupees equity support to central PSUs
* 1.227 trln rupees outlay in FY07 for public sector
* 100 bln rupees corpus for RIDF-XII in FY07
* Separate window for rural roads under RIDF
* To unwind special securities by converting to SLR papers
* Defense allocation raised to 890 bln rupees FY07
* To provide 30 bln rupees as VAT compensation to states
* States' revenue share up at 944 billion rupees FY07
* Tax-GDP ratio 10.5% in FY06 vs 9.8% yr ago
* FY06 fiscal deficit revised to 4.1% of GDP vs 4.3%
* FY06 revenue deficit revised to 2.6% of GDP vs 2.7%
* FY07 non-plan expenditure seen at 3.91 trln rupees
* FY07 fiscal deficit pegged at 3.8% of GDP
* FY07 total expenditure pegged at 5.639 trln rupees
AGRICULTURE
* Foodgrain output 209.3 mln tns, up 5 mln tns over last yr
* Farm credit to be raised to 1.75 trillion rupees in FY07
* Banks asked to add 5 mln more farmers to credit portfolio
* Interest subsidy of 200 bps for farm loans taken 05-06
* To provide 17 bln rupees for farmers' relief
* Short-term credit to farmers at 7%
* Special new NABARD credit line for self-help groups
* Central institute of Horticulture to be set up in Nagaland
* Food processing to be priority sector for bank credit
* NABARD to set up 10 bln rupee centre for food processing
INDUSTRY
* Manufacturing sector to grow at 9.4% in 2006-07
* Barring mining, all sectors performing satisfactorily
* Set up special purpose tea fund with 1-bln-rupee corpus
* National Fisheries Board to be constituted soon
* 5.35 bln rupees in FY07 for textile upgradation scheme
* Jute Technology Mission, National Jute Board to be set up
* Govt proposes Handloom Mark
* To develop 3 investment regions for oil sector in FY07
* 180 SSI items identified for de-reservation
* To recognise small, medium enterprises in services sector
* For cut in SSI credit guarantee fee to 1.5% vs 2.5%
INFRASTRUCTURE
* Highway schemes progressing at 4.4 km/day
* 5,083 MW capacity to be added in 2005-06
* 96% of Golden Quadrilateral will be completed by Jun
* 870,000 rural houses built under Bharat Nirman
* 71,182 villages got telephones under Bharat Nirman
* 870,000 rural houses built in Apr-Jan
* Budget support of 186.96 bln rupees for Bharat Nirman FY07
* Education allocation up in FY07 to 241.54 bln rupees
* Sarva Siksha Abhyan outlay for FY07 at 100.41 bln rupees
* FY07 mid-day meal allocation 48.13 bln rupees
* Rural employment to cost 117 bln rupees in FY07
* FY07 drinking water outlay 46.8 bln rupees vs 36.45 bln
* 143 bln rupee outlay in FY07 for Rural Employment Scheme
* 45.95 bln rupee outlay for National Urban Mission in FY07
* 20,000 water bodies to covered under renewal plan
* Indian Infrastructure Investment Co to be established
* Tourism ministry to develop 15 tourist centres
* Set up empowered ministers' group on cluster development
* FY07 allocation for tourist sector 8.30 bln rupees
* 15 bln rupees in FY07 to boost telephone connectivity
* To electrify 40,000 more villages in FY07
* 82 new power projects underway
* To electrify 40,000 more villages in FY07
* 4.75% rise in power generation so far; govt not happy
* 5.97 bln rupee for non-conventional energy resources FY07
* 99.45 bln rupees budget support for NHDP in FY07
* To build 1,000 Kms of access controlled expressways
* 7.35 bln rupees for development of sea ports in FY07
* 1,000 Kms of new expressways on BOT basis
* Defense allocation includes 374.58 bln rupees for capex
SECTORS
* Committed to strong, efficient public sector
* Expert body to look into gems, jewellery sector taxation
* 20 bln tn coal to be deblocked for power sector by 2012
* 45 coal blocks allocated for power, coal, steel sectors
* 220 bln rupee investment expected in refinery sector
* Introduce comprehensive bill on insurance in FY07
DEBT MARKETS
* Cap on FII in gilts raised to $2 bln
* Cap on FII investment in corp debt raised to $1.5 bln
* To remove 10% cap on overseas investment by mutual funds
* NDS-OM to be extended to some MFS, PFs, pension funds
* To create unified exchange traded mkt for corporate bonds
SOCIAL SECTOR
* To eliminate polio by December 2007
* Leprosy to be eliminated by December 2006
* 45.95 bln rupee outlay for National Urban Mission in FY07
* To raise old age pension to 200 rupees/mo vs 75 rupees
* Allocation for SC/STs raised 14.5% to 29.02 bln rupees
* 20,000 merit scholarships for minority students
* 164 mln rupees for National Minorities Development Corp
* To grant 1 bln rupees each to 3 universities
* New grants to Calcutta, Madras, Mumbai universities
* To allocate 970 mln rupees for upgrading ITIs in FY07
* 50 bln rupees for new fund under Panchayati Raj in FY07
* 13 bln rupees special aid to J&K for power reforms
EXTERNAL SECTOR
* FDI estimated at $4 bln till Nov 2005
* Confident of more FDI, especially in infrastructure
* To double world export share to 1.5% by FY09
CUSTOMS DUTY
* Non-farm imports customs peak rate cut to 12.5% from 15%
* Duty on alloy steel cut to 7.5% from 10%
* Customs on steel melting scrap raised to 5%
* Import duty on ores, concentrates cut to 2% from 5%
* BUDGET: Customs duty on inorganic chemicals cut to 10% from 15%
* Customs on steel melting scrap raised to 5%
* Import duty on ores, concentrates cut to 2% from 5%
* Customs on mineral products cut to 5% vs 15%
* Duty on catalysts cut to 7% from 7.5%
* Customs duty on anti-AIDS, anti-cancer drugs cut to 5%
* Customs on packaging machines cut to 5% vs 15%
* To impose countervailing duty of 4% on oil imports
* Customs duty on vanaspati raised to 18%
* Import duty on man-made fibre yarn cut to 8% vs 18%
EXCISE DUTY
* All excise rates to converge at CENVAT rate at 16%
* Excise duty on small cars cut to 16%
* Condensed milk, ice-creams exempted from excise duty
* 8% excise on packaged software in FY07
* Excise on idly, dose premixes cut to 16%
* Excise duty on aerated drinks cut to 16%
* Excise on glassware will be 16%
* DVD, Flash, Combo drives exempted from excise duty
* Duty on naphtha on plastics to be nil
* Petroleum pdts duty measures to be retail price neutral
* Excise duty on printing paper, ink cut to 12% from 16%
* Excise on cigarettes hiked by 5%
SERVICE TAX
* More services brought under service tax net
* Registrars, share transfer agents under service tax net
* Service tax to be extended to PR firms
* ATM operation, maintenance to come under service tax
* Services industry seen contributing 54% of GDP
* Service tax raised to 12% from 10%
* Apr 1, 2010 deadline for national level goods, svcs tax
DIRECT TAX
* No change in personal, corporate income tax rates
* Minimum Alternate Tax rate up to 10% from 7.5%
* To abolish 1/6 income tax norm
* MAT cos' credit period extended to 7 years
* Rate for STT increased by 25%
* Bank deposits of over 5 year under section 80C of IT Act
* 10,000 rupee ceiling on pension contribution removed
* Open, close-end equity MFs on par for div distribution tax
* PAN needed for more transactions
* To continue with cash withdrawal tax
* Hopes debate on FBT ends; FBT is justified
* Announce changes in computation of fringe benefit tax
* Lauds cash withdrawal tax role in curbing money laundering
* Retirement contribution cap of 100,000 rupees for FBT
* To issue statement of revenue foregone
* Include LPG under declared goods for CST
* States taxing LPG at high rates
* BUDGET: Direct tax proposals to yield 40 bln rupees more FY07
Outsourcing my Life---An eye opener
My Outsourced LifeCall centers do it. IT firms do it. Manufacturers are doing the hell out of it. Even the CIA does it. So why can't I?By A. J. Jacobs Sep 01 '05
EsquireI REALLY SHOULDN'T HAVE to write this article myself. I mean, why am I the one stuck in front of a computer terminal? All this tedious pecking out of words on my laptop. Nouns, verbs, adjectives, prepositions . Jesus. What a pain in my ass. Can't someone else do it? Can't I delegate this to one of my new assistants and spend my day kicking back on a chaise lounge, Sam Adams in hand, admiring Mischa Barton's navel on my TV?
What about having Asha write it? Or Sunder, Vivek, or Mr. Naveen? Or best of all, my sweet, sweet Honey? Pretty much anyone on my overseas staff will do. Or maybe not. Maybe that's one of the lessons of these jarring and curiously enlightening four weeks. Dammit. I guess I'll have to write about the lessons , too. Okay, on with it. Here you go. As my team might say, thanking you in advance for reading this story.
It began a month ago. I was midway through The World Is Flat , the bestseller by Tom Friedman. I like Friedman, despite his puzzling decision to wear a mustache. His book is all about how outsourcing to India and China is not just for tech support and carmakers but is poised to transform every industry in America, from law to banking to accounting. CEOs are chopping up projects and sending the lower-end tasks to strangers in cubicles ten time zones away. And it's only going to snowball; America has not yet begun to outsource.
I don't have a corporation; I don't even have an up-to-date business card. I'm a writer and editor working from home, usually in my boxer shorts or, if I'm feeling formal, my penguin-themed pajama bottoms. Then again, I think, why should Fortune 500 firms have all the fun? Why can't I join in on the biggest business trend of the new century? Why can't I outsource my low-end tasks? Why can't I outsource my life?
The next day I e-mail Brickwork, one of the companies Friedman mentions in his book. Brickwork—based in Bangalore, India—offers "remote executive assistants," mostly to financial firms and health-care companies that want data processed. I explain that I'd like to hire someone to help with Esquire-related tasks—doing research, formatting memos, like that. The company's CEO, Vivek Kulkarni, responds: "It would be a great pleasure to be talking to a person of your stature." Already I'm liking this. I've never had stature before. In America, I barely command respect from a Bennigan's maître d', so it's nice to know that in India I have stature.
A couple of days later, I get an e-mail from my new "remote executive assistant."
Dear Jacobs, My name is Honey K. Balani. I would be assisting you in your editorial and personal job. . . . I would try to adapt myself as per your requirements that would lead to desired satisfaction.
Desired satisfaction. This is great. Back when I worked at an office, I had assistants, but there was never any talk of desired satisfaction . In fact, if anyone ever used the phrase "desired satisfaction," we'd all end up in a solemn meeting with HR. And I won't even comment on the name Honey except to say that, real or not, it sure carries Anaïs Nin undertones.
Oh, did I mention that Vivek sent me a JPEG of Honey? She's wearing a white sleeveless shirt and has full lips, long hair, skin the color of her first name. She looks a bit like an Indian Eva Longoria. I can't stop staring at her left eyebrow, which is ever so slightly cocked. Is she flirting with me?
I go out to dinner with my friend Misha, who grew up in India, founded a software firm, and subsequently became nauseatingly rich. I tell him about Operation Outsource. "You should call Your Man in India," he says. Misha explains that this is a company for Indian businessmen who have moved overseas but who still have parents back in New Delhi or Mumbai. YMII is their overseas concierge service—it buys movie tickets and cell phones and other sundries for the abandoned moms.
Perfect. This could kick my outsourcing up to a new level. I can have a nice, clean division of labor: Honey will take care of my business affairs, and YMII can attend to my personal life—pay my bills, make vacation reservations, buy stuff online. Happily, YMII likes the idea, and just like that the support team at Jacobs Inc. has doubled. And so far, I'm not going broke: I'm paying $1,000 for a month of eight-hour days from Honey (Brickwork gave me a half-off deal) and $400 for a month of four-hour days from Your Man in India.
To pay for YMII, I send my MasterCard number in an e-mail. The company's CEO, Sunder P., replies with a gentle but stern note: "In your own interests, and for security purposes, we advise you not to send credit-card information through e-mail. Now that it has been sent, there is nothing much we can do about it and we confirm safe receipt." Damn. I know what he's thinking: How the hell did these idiots ever become a superpower?
Honey has completed her first project for me: research on the person Esquire has chosen as the Sexiest Woman Alive. (See page 232.) I've been assigned to write a profile of this woman, and I really don't want to have to slog through all the heavy-breathing fan Web sites about her. When I open Honey's file, I have this reaction: America is fucked. There are charts. There are section headers. There is a well-organized breakdown of her pets, measurements, and favorite foods (e.g., swordfish). If all Bangalorians are like Honey, I pity Americans about to graduate college. They're up against a hungry, polite, Excel-proficient Indian army. Put it this way: Honey ends her e-mails with "Right time for right action, starts now!" Your average American assistant believes the "right time for right action" starts after a Starbucks venti latte and a discussion of last night's Amazing Race 8.
I GET an introductory e-mail from my personal-life outsourcer. Her name is Asha. Even though the firm's called Your Man in India, I've been assigned another woman. Hmm. I suspect these outsourcers figure I'm a randy men's-magazine editor who enjoys bossing around the ladies. I e-mail Asha a list of books I want from Amazon.com and a birthday gift I'd like her to buy my wife, Julie—a silicone pot holder. (Romantic, no?) Both go smoothly.
In fact, in the next few days, I outsource a whole mess of online errands to Asha: paying my bills, getting stuff from drugstore.com, finding my son a Tickle Me Elmo. (Actually, the store was out of Tickle Me Elmos, so Asha bought a Chicken Dance Elmo—good decision.) I had her call Cingular to ask about my cell-phone plan. I'm just guessing, but I bet her call was routed from Bangalore to New Jersey and then back to a Cingular employee in Bangalore, which makes me happy for some reason.
Every day Asha attaches an Excel chart listing the status of my many tasks. The system is working—not counting the hitch in the drugstore order: Instead of wax paper, we get wax-strip mustache removers for ladies. My wife is insulted.
IT'S THE FOURTH morning of my new, farmed-out life, and when I flip on my computer, my e-mail in-box is already filled with updates from my overseas aides. It's a strange feeling having people work for you while you sleep. Strange, but great. I'm not wasting time while I drool on my pillow; things are getting done.
As on every morning at 8:30, I get a call from Honey. "Good morning, Jacobs." Her accent is noticeable but not too thick, Americanized by years of voice training. She's the single most upbeat person I've ever encountered. Whatever soul-deadening chore I give her, she says, "That would indeed be interesting" or "Thank you for bestowing this important task." I have a feeling that if I asked her to count the number of semicolons in the Senate energy bill, she would be grateful for such a fascinating project.
Every call ends the same way: I thank her, and she replies, "You are always welcome, Jacobs." I'm starting to like her a lot.
One task for which Honey is thankful is e-mailing my colleagues. I've begun to refuse to communicate with them directly. Why should I? Honey can be my buffer from the unpleasant world of office politics. I'll be aloof and mysterious, like the pope or Mark Burnett. This morning, I ask Honey to pester my boss about an idea I sent him a few days ago: an article on modern gold prospectors.
Mr. Granger, Jacobs had mailed you about the idea of "gold prospecting." I am sure you would have received his mail on this. It would be great if you could invest your time and patience on giving thought about his plans. Do revert and let Jacobs know about your suggestions on the same. As you know that your decision would be accepted with utmost respect. Jacobs is awaiting your response. Thanking you, Honey Balani
Another advantage to this strategy: My boss can't just e-mail a terse "No," as he might to me. Honey's finely crafted e-mails demand a polite multisentence response. The balance of power has shifted.
IT'S JULIE'S birthday today, and I've kept Asha busy with celebration-related tasks. Picnic orders, reminder e-mails to Julie's friends, and so on. Asha is more distant than Honey. I now have a vague sense of who Honey is—she's a mere twenty years old, likes to go bowling and go-carting, wears sleeveless shirts—but Asha? Nothing. In my few phone calls with Asha, I've noticed that her accent is slightly more pronounced than Honey's and that she speaks in sort of a monotone, so I can't even tell if she likes me. Which makes me insecure. And I'm even more nervous about her boss, Sunder P. He's been monitoring Asha's orders and sent me a note that she "missed the point" and bungled a communication about a kitchenware item. He's tough. But then today, the YMII team up and sends Julie an unsolicited birthday e-card—with butterflies and a Robert Louis Stevenson quote. I feel much better. I shoot back a thank-you.
Sunder P. writes back:
Looking at the things we have been ordering on behalf of you, Asha almost was feeling like being part of your household. So isn't it befitting that we wish your family and be part of your celebration. (Remotely . . . from 10,000 miles away.)
I tell him that we feel she's part of the family, too. I don't have the heart to inform him that Julie was kind of disappointed that I had asked Asha to call 1-800-Flowers. The roses and lilies looked fine to me, but apparently 1-800-Flowers is the McDonald's of florists, and she was expecting more Daniel Boulud.
I THINK I'M in love with Honey. How can I not be? She makes my mother look unsupportive. Every day I get showered with compliments, many involving capital letters: "awesome Editor" and "Family Man." When I confess I'm a bit tired, she tells me, "You need rest. . . . Do not to overexert yourself." It's constant positive feedback, like phone sex without the moaning.
Sometimes the relentless admiration makes me feel a little awkward, perhaps like a viceroy in the British East India company. Another cucumber sandwich, Honey! And a Pimm's cup while you're at it! But then she calls me "brilliant" and I forget my guilt.
Plus, Honey is my protector. Consider this: For some reason, the Colorado Tourism Board e-mails me all the time. (Most recently, they informed me about a festival in Colorado Springs featuring the world's most famous harlequin.) I request that Honey gently ask them to stop with the press releases. Here's what she sent:
Dear All, Jacobs often receives mails from Colorado news, too often. They are definitely interesting topics. However, these topics are not suitable for "Esquire."
Further, we do understand that you have taken a lot of initiatives working on these articles and sending it to us. We understand. Unfortunately, these articles and mails are too time consuming to be read.
Currently, these mails are not serving right purpose for both of us. Thus, we request to stop sending these mails.
We do not mean to demean your research work by this.
We hope you understand too.
Thanking you,
Honey K B
That is the best rejection notice in journalism history. It's exceedingly polite, but there's a little undercurrent of indignation. Honey seems almost outraged that Colorado would waste the valuable time of Jacobs.
Along the same lines, Honey wrote a complaint letter to American Airlines for me; the flight I recently took offered only shrimp for dinner, a dish I don't eat. "Since it has caused such an inconvenience, I demand reimbursement," she wrote. Don't mess with Honey.
Incidentally, Honey and Asha don't know about each other. I'm constantly worried about getting busted for my infidelities, for my life of outsourcer bigamy. What if they run into each other at the Bangalore hardware store? What if I call Asha "Honey" and she thinks I'm hitting on her?
MY FATHER-IN-LAW has come to town, which means a dinner filled with a series of increasingly excruciating puns. Asked whether he ever suffered gout, he replies, "No gout about it!"
Damn, do I wish I could outsource this dinner. Where's Honey? Where's Asha?
I've become addicted to outsourcing. I am desperate to delegate everything in my life but have to face the depressing reality that there are limits. I can't outsource those horrible twenty-five-minute StairMaster sessions. I can't outsource taking a piss. I can't outsource sex with Julie. Not that I dislike it, but we're trying to have another kid, which means a whole bunch of sex, and enough is enough, you know? It gets tiring. I can't outsource watering the ficus.
Still. . . . every weekend, I place a dutiful call to my parents. It's a nice thing to do, I figure—but it's also a huge time vacuum. This weekend it's Mom and Dad's anniversary, so I can expect it to eat up even more of my day than usual. Mr. Naveen to the rescue. I e-mail Mr. Naveen—the YMII employee who will be on duty at the time—a few concerned-sounding questions and a couple of filial sound bites. Next day, I get this e-mail:
I made an out bound call to Jacob's parents. They very happily received my call. I first introduced myself to them. Then I wished them Happy Anniversary they both told me thank you. . . . I asked them how is the weather in their place. They told me that it is pretty nice temperature here and the garden looks beautiful.
I won't reproduce the whole transcript, but apparently my mom's sprained foot has gotten better (though the rain does not help), and my dad's law practice is going along very well. As for me, I had a good week, apparently. This was highly successful outsourcing, saving me at least half an hour of sweaty-eared phone time.
MY OUTSOURCERS now know an alarming amount about me—not just my schedule but my cholesterol, my infertility problems, my Social Security number, my passwords (including the one that is a particularly adolescent curse word). Sometimes I worry that I can't piss off my outsourcers or I'll end up with a $12,000 charge on my MasterCard bill from the Louis Vuitton in Anantapur.
In any case, the information imbalance is pretty huge. I know practically nothing about them. So I e-mail them both to request a minibiography.
Honey sends me a two-page file called Honey4U. She's a jazz and salsa dancer, loves Friends , reads Jeffrey Archer. She has a boyfriend. She works from 2:00 P.M. to 11:00 P.M. her time and has an hour-and-a-half commute at either end. She trains people in customer-handling skills and in how to lose their Indian accent. She likes broccoli, coriander, and orange juice.
Asha, as expected, is a little less prolix but still gives me some nuggets: She's also a salsa dancer, oddly enough. She used to do something called "value-based education through dance." She studied electrical engineering, got married in February to a guy in real estate. She works from 9:30 A.M. to 5:30 P.M. Bangalore time. She lives with her in-laws.
I'VE REALIZED something: Asha and Honey never say no. I find myself testing them, asking them to perform increasingly bizarre tasks, inching toward abuse of power. Read The New York Times for me. E-mail me a bunch of questions from Who Wants to Be a Millionaire . Send me a collection of Michael Jackson jokes (e.g., "Why was Michael Jackson spotted at Kmart? He heard boys' pants were half off"). I keep pushing, but I haven't yet found their limits. The closest I got to a no was when I made the admittedly odd request that Asha play the card game hearts for me, since I was wasting too much time playing it myself on my PalmPilot. Asha replied that she thought this was a "good idea" but that maybe she would do it after finishing the other projects.
EMBOLDENED BY Mr. Naveen's triumph with my parents, I decide to test the next logical relationship: my marriage. These arguments with my wife are killing me—partly because Julie is a much better debater than I am. Maybe Asha can do better:
Hello Asha, My wife got annoyed at me because I forgot to get cash at the automatic bank machine. . . . I wonder if you could tell her that I love her, but gently remind her that she too forgets things—she has lost her wallet twice in the last month. And she forgot to buy nail clippers for Jasper. AJ
I can't tell you what a thrill I got from sending that note. It's pretty hard to get much more passive-aggressive than bickering with your wife via an e-mail from a subcontinent halfway around the world.
The next morning, Asha CC'd me on the e-mail she sent to Julie.
Julie, Do understand your anger that I forgot to pick up the cash at the automatic machine. I have been forgetful and I am sorry about that. But I guess that doesn't change the fact that I love you so much. . . . Love AJ P. S. This is Asha mailing on behalf of Mr. Jacobs.
As if that weren't enough, she also sent Julie an e-card. I click on it: two teddy bears embracing, with the words "Anytime you need a hug, I've got one for you. . . . I'm sorry."
Damn! My outsourcers are too friggin' nice! They kept the apology part but took out my little jabs. They are trying to save me from myself. They are superegoing my id. I feel castrated.
Julie, on the other hand, seems quite pleased: "That's nice, sweetie. I forgive you."
I shoot off another e-mail to Asha: Could you thank her for forgiving me for not getting cash? And tell her that I, in turn, forgive her for forgetting to tell me about the Central Park date with Shannon and David until I overheard her talking about it with a friend.
The next morning I get CC'd on another Asha e-mail to Julie. Am happy you forgave me for not getting the cash. And I am glad to do the same about the Central Park date with Shannon and David. It's human nature to forget. Perhaps, I could do better by having Asha put up a calendar and sending us reminders about these little things. Love AJ
Good. At least this time I got my little dig in. But Julie just brushes it off—it's hard to trump a hugging-teddy-bear apology note. Like it or not, those damn stuffed animals improved my marriage. Asha should take care of all my bickering; she's my better nature.
HONEY SEEMS to be lavishing me with even more adulation these days. She tells me that she waits eagerly for my e-mails. I'm beginning to feel like David Koresh without the guitar or weapons stash. It's a little stressful. I'm forever afraid of disappointing her, of not being creative or brilliant enough to merit her acclaim. On the other hand, maybe she's just doing her job and actually despises my white imperialist ass.
At the least, I figure I can take advantage of the exaltation. I ask Honey to write an entry in Wikipedia—the online, open-source encyclopedia—about me and my recent book, The Know-It-All . It reads in part:
"A. J. Jacobs is a not so unheard of international figure, who can threaten the most au courant wizards with his knowledge. . . . [He] is a writer and editor of phenomenal grey matter."
Perfection.
FRIEDMAN QUOTES outsourcing advocates who argue we should embrace it as an opportunity. If someone else is plugging away on the lower-end tasks, that frees Americans to work on higher-end creative projects. Makes sense. After all, Jacobs is the creative genius with phenomenal grey matter. The world is better off with me focused on the high end.
But lately, Honey has started sending me unsolicited ideas—and some of them are pretty good. Granted, there are a few clunkers in there, and the English sometimes needs to be decoded, like a rebus. But there are also some winners: Honey suggests Esquire conduct a survey on what women want men to wear. Could work.
The point is, she's got talent. If Honey is a guide, the Indian workforce can be just as innovative and aggressive as the American, so the "benefits" might not be so beneficial. Us high-end types will be as vulnerable as assembly-line workers. (Friedman's other pro-outsourcing argument seems more persuasive—that free trade will open up the huge Chinese and Indian markets to American exports.)
Regardless, if I end up on a street corner with a WILL EDIT FOR FOOD sign, then at least I'll know that I've lost my job to decent, salsa-loving people like Honey and Asha.
DESPITE THREE WEEKS with my support team, I'm still stressed. Perhaps it's the fault of Chicken Dance Elmo, whom my son loves to the point of dry humping, but who is driving me slowly insane. Whatever the reason, I figure it's time to conquer another frontier: outsourcing my inner life.
First, I try to delegate my therapy. My plan is to give Asha a list of my neuroses and a childhood anecdote or two, have her talk to my shrink for fifty minutes, then relay the advice. Smart, right? My shrink refused. Ethics or something. Fine. Instead, I have Asha send me a meticulously researched memo on stress relief. It had a nice Indian flavor to it, with a couple of yogic postures and some visualization.
This was okay, but it didn't seem quite enough. I decided I needed to outsource my worry. For the last few weeks I've been tearing my hair out because a business deal is taking far too long to close. I asked Honey if she would be interested in tearing her hair out in my stead. Just for a few minutes a day. She thought it was a wonderful idea. "I will worry about this every day," she wrote. "Do not worry."
The outsourcing of my neuroses was one of the most successful experiments of the month. Every time I started to ruminate, I'd remind myself that Honey was already on the case, and I'd relax. No joke—this alone was worth the $1,000.
I'VE OUTSOURCED my marriage and filial duties, but somehow my son has gotten overlooked. It's time to delegate some parenting to the Jacobs support staff. Julie is out watching her childhood friend do a stand-up-comedy gig, and I'm stuck alone with Jasper. It's 7:00 P.M., Jasper's bedtime, but I've got to write some semi-urgent e-mails. No time for hungry caterpillars or jumping monkeys.
"Mr. Naveen? If I put you on speakerphone, would you be willing to read to my son? Oh, anything. The newspaper's fine. Yeah, just say his name once in a while. It's Jasper. Okay, I'm going to put you on now. Okay, go ahead."
A pause. Then I hear Mr. Naveen's low but soothing voice: "Taiwan and Korea also are subscribing to new Indian funds in their markets." Jasper isn't crying. I'm tapping away on my PowerBook. "European Union . . . several potential investors . . . parliament." I glance at Jasper again; he seems perplexed but curious. "Aeronautical engineers and technicians." Jasper seems to like aeronautical engineers. "Prospects of a strong domestic demand." After three minutes, I start to feel guilt-ridden. I've officially begun to abuse my power. Why didn't I just turn on the Wiggles? Then again, Mr. Naveen's lilting voice is so comforting; if there were bright-colored cartoons of strong domestic demand, this would be ideal.
SPEAKING OF the Indian domestic economy, it's looking pretty rosy. My team is good, cheap, and absurdly eager. They will do anything short of violating the Geneva Conventions. And with most of the tasks—online shopping, thank-you notes, research—my crew saves minutes or even hours of my day. Admittedly, the outsourcing of my life is sometimes counterproductive—an ill-fated order of an eggplant dish from a nearby restaurant comes to mind. But overall, it's working. To me, it seems the future of outsourcing is as limitless as . . . blah, blah, blah.
You know what? I'm kind of bored writing this piece. I'm going into the other room to enjoy some Entourage on HBO. So I've asked Honey to finish up writing this article for me.
Once, I was watching I, Robot with my wife and I thought Life would become so easy with a robot. Then, the next instant I thought not just a robot but more of a humanized robot. In the book The World Is Flat , the author wrote about an interesting job that could be outsourced to India, which provoked me to have a Remote Assistant. Though I have never seen Honey K. B., I speak to her almost everyday when she calls me. Though our communication is not visual, I still know that she is a reliable assistant. Our interactions that we have had through mails and telephonic conversation never made me feel that she is miles away from me. To conclude I would say I did not get a robot but yes a Human like me who can think and work for me.
Yes, America, we're cooked.
EsquireI REALLY SHOULDN'T HAVE to write this article myself. I mean, why am I the one stuck in front of a computer terminal? All this tedious pecking out of words on my laptop. Nouns, verbs, adjectives, prepositions . Jesus. What a pain in my ass. Can't someone else do it? Can't I delegate this to one of my new assistants and spend my day kicking back on a chaise lounge, Sam Adams in hand, admiring Mischa Barton's navel on my TV?
What about having Asha write it? Or Sunder, Vivek, or Mr. Naveen? Or best of all, my sweet, sweet Honey? Pretty much anyone on my overseas staff will do. Or maybe not. Maybe that's one of the lessons of these jarring and curiously enlightening four weeks. Dammit. I guess I'll have to write about the lessons , too. Okay, on with it. Here you go. As my team might say, thanking you in advance for reading this story.
It began a month ago. I was midway through The World Is Flat , the bestseller by Tom Friedman. I like Friedman, despite his puzzling decision to wear a mustache. His book is all about how outsourcing to India and China is not just for tech support and carmakers but is poised to transform every industry in America, from law to banking to accounting. CEOs are chopping up projects and sending the lower-end tasks to strangers in cubicles ten time zones away. And it's only going to snowball; America has not yet begun to outsource.
I don't have a corporation; I don't even have an up-to-date business card. I'm a writer and editor working from home, usually in my boxer shorts or, if I'm feeling formal, my penguin-themed pajama bottoms. Then again, I think, why should Fortune 500 firms have all the fun? Why can't I join in on the biggest business trend of the new century? Why can't I outsource my low-end tasks? Why can't I outsource my life?
The next day I e-mail Brickwork, one of the companies Friedman mentions in his book. Brickwork—based in Bangalore, India—offers "remote executive assistants," mostly to financial firms and health-care companies that want data processed. I explain that I'd like to hire someone to help with Esquire-related tasks—doing research, formatting memos, like that. The company's CEO, Vivek Kulkarni, responds: "It would be a great pleasure to be talking to a person of your stature." Already I'm liking this. I've never had stature before. In America, I barely command respect from a Bennigan's maître d', so it's nice to know that in India I have stature.
A couple of days later, I get an e-mail from my new "remote executive assistant."
Dear Jacobs, My name is Honey K. Balani. I would be assisting you in your editorial and personal job. . . . I would try to adapt myself as per your requirements that would lead to desired satisfaction.
Desired satisfaction. This is great. Back when I worked at an office, I had assistants, but there was never any talk of desired satisfaction . In fact, if anyone ever used the phrase "desired satisfaction," we'd all end up in a solemn meeting with HR. And I won't even comment on the name Honey except to say that, real or not, it sure carries Anaïs Nin undertones.
Oh, did I mention that Vivek sent me a JPEG of Honey? She's wearing a white sleeveless shirt and has full lips, long hair, skin the color of her first name. She looks a bit like an Indian Eva Longoria. I can't stop staring at her left eyebrow, which is ever so slightly cocked. Is she flirting with me?
I go out to dinner with my friend Misha, who grew up in India, founded a software firm, and subsequently became nauseatingly rich. I tell him about Operation Outsource. "You should call Your Man in India," he says. Misha explains that this is a company for Indian businessmen who have moved overseas but who still have parents back in New Delhi or Mumbai. YMII is their overseas concierge service—it buys movie tickets and cell phones and other sundries for the abandoned moms.
Perfect. This could kick my outsourcing up to a new level. I can have a nice, clean division of labor: Honey will take care of my business affairs, and YMII can attend to my personal life—pay my bills, make vacation reservations, buy stuff online. Happily, YMII likes the idea, and just like that the support team at Jacobs Inc. has doubled. And so far, I'm not going broke: I'm paying $1,000 for a month of eight-hour days from Honey (Brickwork gave me a half-off deal) and $400 for a month of four-hour days from Your Man in India.
To pay for YMII, I send my MasterCard number in an e-mail. The company's CEO, Sunder P., replies with a gentle but stern note: "In your own interests, and for security purposes, we advise you not to send credit-card information through e-mail. Now that it has been sent, there is nothing much we can do about it and we confirm safe receipt." Damn. I know what he's thinking: How the hell did these idiots ever become a superpower?
Honey has completed her first project for me: research on the person Esquire has chosen as the Sexiest Woman Alive. (See page 232.) I've been assigned to write a profile of this woman, and I really don't want to have to slog through all the heavy-breathing fan Web sites about her. When I open Honey's file, I have this reaction: America is fucked. There are charts. There are section headers. There is a well-organized breakdown of her pets, measurements, and favorite foods (e.g., swordfish). If all Bangalorians are like Honey, I pity Americans about to graduate college. They're up against a hungry, polite, Excel-proficient Indian army. Put it this way: Honey ends her e-mails with "Right time for right action, starts now!" Your average American assistant believes the "right time for right action" starts after a Starbucks venti latte and a discussion of last night's Amazing Race 8.
I GET an introductory e-mail from my personal-life outsourcer. Her name is Asha. Even though the firm's called Your Man in India, I've been assigned another woman. Hmm. I suspect these outsourcers figure I'm a randy men's-magazine editor who enjoys bossing around the ladies. I e-mail Asha a list of books I want from Amazon.com and a birthday gift I'd like her to buy my wife, Julie—a silicone pot holder. (Romantic, no?) Both go smoothly.
In fact, in the next few days, I outsource a whole mess of online errands to Asha: paying my bills, getting stuff from drugstore.com, finding my son a Tickle Me Elmo. (Actually, the store was out of Tickle Me Elmos, so Asha bought a Chicken Dance Elmo—good decision.) I had her call Cingular to ask about my cell-phone plan. I'm just guessing, but I bet her call was routed from Bangalore to New Jersey and then back to a Cingular employee in Bangalore, which makes me happy for some reason.
Every day Asha attaches an Excel chart listing the status of my many tasks. The system is working—not counting the hitch in the drugstore order: Instead of wax paper, we get wax-strip mustache removers for ladies. My wife is insulted.
IT'S THE FOURTH morning of my new, farmed-out life, and when I flip on my computer, my e-mail in-box is already filled with updates from my overseas aides. It's a strange feeling having people work for you while you sleep. Strange, but great. I'm not wasting time while I drool on my pillow; things are getting done.
As on every morning at 8:30, I get a call from Honey. "Good morning, Jacobs." Her accent is noticeable but not too thick, Americanized by years of voice training. She's the single most upbeat person I've ever encountered. Whatever soul-deadening chore I give her, she says, "That would indeed be interesting" or "Thank you for bestowing this important task." I have a feeling that if I asked her to count the number of semicolons in the Senate energy bill, she would be grateful for such a fascinating project.
Every call ends the same way: I thank her, and she replies, "You are always welcome, Jacobs." I'm starting to like her a lot.
One task for which Honey is thankful is e-mailing my colleagues. I've begun to refuse to communicate with them directly. Why should I? Honey can be my buffer from the unpleasant world of office politics. I'll be aloof and mysterious, like the pope or Mark Burnett. This morning, I ask Honey to pester my boss about an idea I sent him a few days ago: an article on modern gold prospectors.
Mr. Granger, Jacobs had mailed you about the idea of "gold prospecting." I am sure you would have received his mail on this. It would be great if you could invest your time and patience on giving thought about his plans. Do revert and let Jacobs know about your suggestions on the same. As you know that your decision would be accepted with utmost respect. Jacobs is awaiting your response. Thanking you, Honey Balani
Another advantage to this strategy: My boss can't just e-mail a terse "No," as he might to me. Honey's finely crafted e-mails demand a polite multisentence response. The balance of power has shifted.
IT'S JULIE'S birthday today, and I've kept Asha busy with celebration-related tasks. Picnic orders, reminder e-mails to Julie's friends, and so on. Asha is more distant than Honey. I now have a vague sense of who Honey is—she's a mere twenty years old, likes to go bowling and go-carting, wears sleeveless shirts—but Asha? Nothing. In my few phone calls with Asha, I've noticed that her accent is slightly more pronounced than Honey's and that she speaks in sort of a monotone, so I can't even tell if she likes me. Which makes me insecure. And I'm even more nervous about her boss, Sunder P. He's been monitoring Asha's orders and sent me a note that she "missed the point" and bungled a communication about a kitchenware item. He's tough. But then today, the YMII team up and sends Julie an unsolicited birthday e-card—with butterflies and a Robert Louis Stevenson quote. I feel much better. I shoot back a thank-you.
Sunder P. writes back:
Looking at the things we have been ordering on behalf of you, Asha almost was feeling like being part of your household. So isn't it befitting that we wish your family and be part of your celebration. (Remotely . . . from 10,000 miles away.)
I tell him that we feel she's part of the family, too. I don't have the heart to inform him that Julie was kind of disappointed that I had asked Asha to call 1-800-Flowers. The roses and lilies looked fine to me, but apparently 1-800-Flowers is the McDonald's of florists, and she was expecting more Daniel Boulud.
I THINK I'M in love with Honey. How can I not be? She makes my mother look unsupportive. Every day I get showered with compliments, many involving capital letters: "awesome Editor" and "Family Man." When I confess I'm a bit tired, she tells me, "You need rest. . . . Do not to overexert yourself." It's constant positive feedback, like phone sex without the moaning.
Sometimes the relentless admiration makes me feel a little awkward, perhaps like a viceroy in the British East India company. Another cucumber sandwich, Honey! And a Pimm's cup while you're at it! But then she calls me "brilliant" and I forget my guilt.
Plus, Honey is my protector. Consider this: For some reason, the Colorado Tourism Board e-mails me all the time. (Most recently, they informed me about a festival in Colorado Springs featuring the world's most famous harlequin.) I request that Honey gently ask them to stop with the press releases. Here's what she sent:
Dear All, Jacobs often receives mails from Colorado news, too often. They are definitely interesting topics. However, these topics are not suitable for "Esquire."
Further, we do understand that you have taken a lot of initiatives working on these articles and sending it to us. We understand. Unfortunately, these articles and mails are too time consuming to be read.
Currently, these mails are not serving right purpose for both of us. Thus, we request to stop sending these mails.
We do not mean to demean your research work by this.
We hope you understand too.
Thanking you,
Honey K B
That is the best rejection notice in journalism history. It's exceedingly polite, but there's a little undercurrent of indignation. Honey seems almost outraged that Colorado would waste the valuable time of Jacobs.
Along the same lines, Honey wrote a complaint letter to American Airlines for me; the flight I recently took offered only shrimp for dinner, a dish I don't eat. "Since it has caused such an inconvenience, I demand reimbursement," she wrote. Don't mess with Honey.
Incidentally, Honey and Asha don't know about each other. I'm constantly worried about getting busted for my infidelities, for my life of outsourcer bigamy. What if they run into each other at the Bangalore hardware store? What if I call Asha "Honey" and she thinks I'm hitting on her?
MY FATHER-IN-LAW has come to town, which means a dinner filled with a series of increasingly excruciating puns. Asked whether he ever suffered gout, he replies, "No gout about it!"
Damn, do I wish I could outsource this dinner. Where's Honey? Where's Asha?
I've become addicted to outsourcing. I am desperate to delegate everything in my life but have to face the depressing reality that there are limits. I can't outsource those horrible twenty-five-minute StairMaster sessions. I can't outsource taking a piss. I can't outsource sex with Julie. Not that I dislike it, but we're trying to have another kid, which means a whole bunch of sex, and enough is enough, you know? It gets tiring. I can't outsource watering the ficus.
Still. . . . every weekend, I place a dutiful call to my parents. It's a nice thing to do, I figure—but it's also a huge time vacuum. This weekend it's Mom and Dad's anniversary, so I can expect it to eat up even more of my day than usual. Mr. Naveen to the rescue. I e-mail Mr. Naveen—the YMII employee who will be on duty at the time—a few concerned-sounding questions and a couple of filial sound bites. Next day, I get this e-mail:
I made an out bound call to Jacob's parents. They very happily received my call. I first introduced myself to them. Then I wished them Happy Anniversary they both told me thank you. . . . I asked them how is the weather in their place. They told me that it is pretty nice temperature here and the garden looks beautiful.
I won't reproduce the whole transcript, but apparently my mom's sprained foot has gotten better (though the rain does not help), and my dad's law practice is going along very well. As for me, I had a good week, apparently. This was highly successful outsourcing, saving me at least half an hour of sweaty-eared phone time.
MY OUTSOURCERS now know an alarming amount about me—not just my schedule but my cholesterol, my infertility problems, my Social Security number, my passwords (including the one that is a particularly adolescent curse word). Sometimes I worry that I can't piss off my outsourcers or I'll end up with a $12,000 charge on my MasterCard bill from the Louis Vuitton in Anantapur.
In any case, the information imbalance is pretty huge. I know practically nothing about them. So I e-mail them both to request a minibiography.
Honey sends me a two-page file called Honey4U. She's a jazz and salsa dancer, loves Friends , reads Jeffrey Archer. She has a boyfriend. She works from 2:00 P.M. to 11:00 P.M. her time and has an hour-and-a-half commute at either end. She trains people in customer-handling skills and in how to lose their Indian accent. She likes broccoli, coriander, and orange juice.
Asha, as expected, is a little less prolix but still gives me some nuggets: She's also a salsa dancer, oddly enough. She used to do something called "value-based education through dance." She studied electrical engineering, got married in February to a guy in real estate. She works from 9:30 A.M. to 5:30 P.M. Bangalore time. She lives with her in-laws.
I'VE REALIZED something: Asha and Honey never say no. I find myself testing them, asking them to perform increasingly bizarre tasks, inching toward abuse of power. Read The New York Times for me. E-mail me a bunch of questions from Who Wants to Be a Millionaire . Send me a collection of Michael Jackson jokes (e.g., "Why was Michael Jackson spotted at Kmart? He heard boys' pants were half off"). I keep pushing, but I haven't yet found their limits. The closest I got to a no was when I made the admittedly odd request that Asha play the card game hearts for me, since I was wasting too much time playing it myself on my PalmPilot. Asha replied that she thought this was a "good idea" but that maybe she would do it after finishing the other projects.
EMBOLDENED BY Mr. Naveen's triumph with my parents, I decide to test the next logical relationship: my marriage. These arguments with my wife are killing me—partly because Julie is a much better debater than I am. Maybe Asha can do better:
Hello Asha, My wife got annoyed at me because I forgot to get cash at the automatic bank machine. . . . I wonder if you could tell her that I love her, but gently remind her that she too forgets things—she has lost her wallet twice in the last month. And she forgot to buy nail clippers for Jasper. AJ
I can't tell you what a thrill I got from sending that note. It's pretty hard to get much more passive-aggressive than bickering with your wife via an e-mail from a subcontinent halfway around the world.
The next morning, Asha CC'd me on the e-mail she sent to Julie.
Julie, Do understand your anger that I forgot to pick up the cash at the automatic machine. I have been forgetful and I am sorry about that. But I guess that doesn't change the fact that I love you so much. . . . Love AJ P. S. This is Asha mailing on behalf of Mr. Jacobs.
As if that weren't enough, she also sent Julie an e-card. I click on it: two teddy bears embracing, with the words "Anytime you need a hug, I've got one for you. . . . I'm sorry."
Damn! My outsourcers are too friggin' nice! They kept the apology part but took out my little jabs. They are trying to save me from myself. They are superegoing my id. I feel castrated.
Julie, on the other hand, seems quite pleased: "That's nice, sweetie. I forgive you."
I shoot off another e-mail to Asha: Could you thank her for forgiving me for not getting cash? And tell her that I, in turn, forgive her for forgetting to tell me about the Central Park date with Shannon and David until I overheard her talking about it with a friend.
The next morning I get CC'd on another Asha e-mail to Julie. Am happy you forgave me for not getting the cash. And I am glad to do the same about the Central Park date with Shannon and David. It's human nature to forget. Perhaps, I could do better by having Asha put up a calendar and sending us reminders about these little things. Love AJ
Good. At least this time I got my little dig in. But Julie just brushes it off—it's hard to trump a hugging-teddy-bear apology note. Like it or not, those damn stuffed animals improved my marriage. Asha should take care of all my bickering; she's my better nature.
HONEY SEEMS to be lavishing me with even more adulation these days. She tells me that she waits eagerly for my e-mails. I'm beginning to feel like David Koresh without the guitar or weapons stash. It's a little stressful. I'm forever afraid of disappointing her, of not being creative or brilliant enough to merit her acclaim. On the other hand, maybe she's just doing her job and actually despises my white imperialist ass.
At the least, I figure I can take advantage of the exaltation. I ask Honey to write an entry in Wikipedia—the online, open-source encyclopedia—about me and my recent book, The Know-It-All . It reads in part:
"A. J. Jacobs is a not so unheard of international figure, who can threaten the most au courant wizards with his knowledge. . . . [He] is a writer and editor of phenomenal grey matter."
Perfection.
FRIEDMAN QUOTES outsourcing advocates who argue we should embrace it as an opportunity. If someone else is plugging away on the lower-end tasks, that frees Americans to work on higher-end creative projects. Makes sense. After all, Jacobs is the creative genius with phenomenal grey matter. The world is better off with me focused on the high end.
But lately, Honey has started sending me unsolicited ideas—and some of them are pretty good. Granted, there are a few clunkers in there, and the English sometimes needs to be decoded, like a rebus. But there are also some winners: Honey suggests Esquire conduct a survey on what women want men to wear. Could work.
The point is, she's got talent. If Honey is a guide, the Indian workforce can be just as innovative and aggressive as the American, so the "benefits" might not be so beneficial. Us high-end types will be as vulnerable as assembly-line workers. (Friedman's other pro-outsourcing argument seems more persuasive—that free trade will open up the huge Chinese and Indian markets to American exports.)
Regardless, if I end up on a street corner with a WILL EDIT FOR FOOD sign, then at least I'll know that I've lost my job to decent, salsa-loving people like Honey and Asha.
DESPITE THREE WEEKS with my support team, I'm still stressed. Perhaps it's the fault of Chicken Dance Elmo, whom my son loves to the point of dry humping, but who is driving me slowly insane. Whatever the reason, I figure it's time to conquer another frontier: outsourcing my inner life.
First, I try to delegate my therapy. My plan is to give Asha a list of my neuroses and a childhood anecdote or two, have her talk to my shrink for fifty minutes, then relay the advice. Smart, right? My shrink refused. Ethics or something. Fine. Instead, I have Asha send me a meticulously researched memo on stress relief. It had a nice Indian flavor to it, with a couple of yogic postures and some visualization.
This was okay, but it didn't seem quite enough. I decided I needed to outsource my worry. For the last few weeks I've been tearing my hair out because a business deal is taking far too long to close. I asked Honey if she would be interested in tearing her hair out in my stead. Just for a few minutes a day. She thought it was a wonderful idea. "I will worry about this every day," she wrote. "Do not worry."
The outsourcing of my neuroses was one of the most successful experiments of the month. Every time I started to ruminate, I'd remind myself that Honey was already on the case, and I'd relax. No joke—this alone was worth the $1,000.
I'VE OUTSOURCED my marriage and filial duties, but somehow my son has gotten overlooked. It's time to delegate some parenting to the Jacobs support staff. Julie is out watching her childhood friend do a stand-up-comedy gig, and I'm stuck alone with Jasper. It's 7:00 P.M., Jasper's bedtime, but I've got to write some semi-urgent e-mails. No time for hungry caterpillars or jumping monkeys.
"Mr. Naveen? If I put you on speakerphone, would you be willing to read to my son? Oh, anything. The newspaper's fine. Yeah, just say his name once in a while. It's Jasper. Okay, I'm going to put you on now. Okay, go ahead."
A pause. Then I hear Mr. Naveen's low but soothing voice: "Taiwan and Korea also are subscribing to new Indian funds in their markets." Jasper isn't crying. I'm tapping away on my PowerBook. "European Union . . . several potential investors . . . parliament." I glance at Jasper again; he seems perplexed but curious. "Aeronautical engineers and technicians." Jasper seems to like aeronautical engineers. "Prospects of a strong domestic demand." After three minutes, I start to feel guilt-ridden. I've officially begun to abuse my power. Why didn't I just turn on the Wiggles? Then again, Mr. Naveen's lilting voice is so comforting; if there were bright-colored cartoons of strong domestic demand, this would be ideal.
SPEAKING OF the Indian domestic economy, it's looking pretty rosy. My team is good, cheap, and absurdly eager. They will do anything short of violating the Geneva Conventions. And with most of the tasks—online shopping, thank-you notes, research—my crew saves minutes or even hours of my day. Admittedly, the outsourcing of my life is sometimes counterproductive—an ill-fated order of an eggplant dish from a nearby restaurant comes to mind. But overall, it's working. To me, it seems the future of outsourcing is as limitless as . . . blah, blah, blah.
You know what? I'm kind of bored writing this piece. I'm going into the other room to enjoy some Entourage on HBO. So I've asked Honey to finish up writing this article for me.
Once, I was watching I, Robot with my wife and I thought Life would become so easy with a robot. Then, the next instant I thought not just a robot but more of a humanized robot. In the book The World Is Flat , the author wrote about an interesting job that could be outsourced to India, which provoked me to have a Remote Assistant. Though I have never seen Honey K. B., I speak to her almost everyday when she calls me. Though our communication is not visual, I still know that she is a reliable assistant. Our interactions that we have had through mails and telephonic conversation never made me feel that she is miles away from me. To conclude I would say I did not get a robot but yes a Human like me who can think and work for me.
Yes, America, we're cooked.
Friday, February 10, 2006
Thathuvam Corner
1) Bus la collector-yae erinalum.. mudhal seetu driveruku than......
2) Cycle carrierla tiffen-a vechu eduthuttu pogalam Aana... Tiffin carrierla cycle-a vechu eduthuttu poga mudiyathu... ???
3) Ticket vangittu ulla ponna adhu cinema theater anna ulla poittu ticket vanginaa adhu operation theater.
4) Enna than meenuku neendha therinjalum adhala meen kolambula neendha mudiyadhu
5) Nee Evalavu periya dance master'a irundhalum un saavuku unnala aada mudiyathu
6) trainukku ticket vaangi platformla okkaralam ana platformukku ticket vaangi trainla poga mudiyadhu
7) railway stationla police station irukkalam ana police stationla railway station irukka mudiyadhu
8) Train yenna thaan fasta ponnalum , Train ode kadaisee potti kadaiseeya thaan varum!
9) Bus poita bus stand angayae thaan irukum aana cycle poita cycle stand koodavae poogum!
10) Cellula balance illana call panna mudiyathu.... Aaana.... Manushanukku call illana, Balance panna mudiyathu....
11) nee evalo periya padipalliya irundhalum exam hall la poi padikka mudiyadhu..
12) School testla bit adikkalaam......... College testla bit adikkalaam....... aannaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa BLOOD testla bit adikka mudiyaadhu........
13) ENNA THAN NAAI NANDRI ULLATHA THAN IRUNTHALUM?? ATHANALA 'NANRI' NU SOLLA MUDEYATHU!!!!!!!!
14) kovil maniya namma adicha saththam varum... aana kovil mani nammala adicha raththam than varum....
15) meluga vachchu melugu vathi seyyalam... aana kosuva vachi kosu vathi seyya mudiyathu....
16) kosu kadicha tortoise aethivakkalam aana tortoise kadicha kosu aethivakka mudiyumaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Last but not least
Ulagam theriyaama valandha avan veguly
Cricket theriyaama valandha avan ganguly....
Friday, February 03, 2006
News Station
Good News INDIA: Must Watch Video
http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=1679753
Bigotry and Prejudice: the Depiction of Hinduism in the West
http://in.rediff.com/news/2006/feb/01rajeev.htm
His own radio station
http://www.ndtv.com/andfinally/showandfinally.asp?slug=Bihar+village+lad+makes+waves+on+radio&id=2336
http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=1679753
Bigotry and Prejudice: the Depiction of Hinduism in the West
http://in.rediff.com/news/2006/feb/01rajeev.htm
His own radio station
http://www.ndtv.com/andfinally/showandfinally.asp?slug=Bihar+village+lad+makes+waves+on+radio&id=2336
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Yen Ayal Desa Vazhkai-----Calling my Home land
Before even I came to US, I found out from my friends that Reliance is the best calling card provider with good quality at a reasonable price. But later I found out that its costly (they increased) and Hence I found a card from Simple2Call.com called "Call Pack" which offers 16 Hrs for a $108 card. I bought one card for a month since I used to call my home,brothers, friends etc etc. After coming here I felt the importance of them and hence would never forget to call them at least once in 2 weeks.Later I hear from my US friends that Alosmart.com and ReliableCom.com offers even cheaper cards with Ok quality and hence started using them. callnation and quest were good. Here the presence of telugu is such that It can anytime replace spanish in US and seems it is just 4c/min to call hyderabad when it is 8c/min for other cities in India. See how many customers :)
If you want to call anyone in US, you can use satyam iway or use dialpad.com (online service).
If you want to call anyone in US, you can use satyam iway or use dialpad.com (online service).
Friday, July 15, 2005
Quality of IT Life
With more competitive and Project offshoring boom,lets take a look
how it really help economies of third world
Does IT offshoring really helps third world countries:
Not really.For reasons Indian IT companies compete for cheap
project cost/hours and pay inturn less salary to its employees.Lot
of Indian IT companies expect there employees to work for very long
hours during week days and to take permission for absence on week
ends This results in poor Quality work and over all health and
social life is greatly affected.
This is one of the reasons many MNC have started there own offices
in India.For next 5-10 years if you look for a good Quality IT life,
try to work directly in MNC companies such as Oracle,
IBM,Microsoft,World Bank,Office tigers,Yahoo,American
Express,Citigroup,GE etc etc....
The western MNC companies Pay good salary,maintain better work
culture and best Process methodologies with no week end work hassles.
Indian IT Professionals always have there own market share in
US.With current offshoring the same Indian consultant will generate
less money in India when compared to his earnings in US
The real beneficiary of IT offshoring is the countries which
offshores it for less cost.Its purely economic cost calculation.
Its not love or any fond affection western countries are offshoring
Projects to India.If not today India ,they will look for new
destinations where cheaper resource are available in abundant.
The prevailing scenario will continue good for next 5-10 years.
There are new areas apart from IT where India is really benifitting
like
1. call centres
2. Bio Technology
3. back office (accounting,billing,auditing)
4. research
5. Hospital industry
6. Medical billing etc etc.................100's
which are indeed generating lots of money to Country.offcourse the
English language proficiency helps India on all this a lot.
Once offshoring started big scale in all areas ,real estate cost in
India has started soaring all time high.Rising economic hopes in
India have spiraled a chain reaction where by NRI who have till
date showed least Interest in India have started to rediscover and
and investing heavily.
They have started investing there billions of dollars back home on
Land,Industry etc.
we Indians always tend to Jump in to same bandwagon or follow
enmasse rather to be trend setters.Try to explore avenues like Trade
(export/import),Manufacturing,Ever Green(shelter/food/clothing)
industries,inventions etc
Indians have great potential/talent with there rich culture and
moderate approach from there upbringings.Also they lack to identify
there own potential,which needs to be identified and tapped by
others.
For those who take risk there is always reward.
how it really help economies of third world
Does IT offshoring really helps third world countries:
Not really.For reasons Indian IT companies compete for cheap
project cost/hours and pay inturn less salary to its employees.Lot
of Indian IT companies expect there employees to work for very long
hours during week days and to take permission for absence on week
ends This results in poor Quality work and over all health and
social life is greatly affected.
This is one of the reasons many MNC have started there own offices
in India.For next 5-10 years if you look for a good Quality IT life,
try to work directly in MNC companies such as Oracle,
IBM,Microsoft,World Bank,Office tigers,Yahoo,American
Express,Citigroup,GE etc etc....
The western MNC companies Pay good salary,maintain better work
culture and best Process methodologies with no week end work hassles.
Indian IT Professionals always have there own market share in
US.With current offshoring the same Indian consultant will generate
less money in India when compared to his earnings in US
The real beneficiary of IT offshoring is the countries which
offshores it for less cost.Its purely economic cost calculation.
Its not love or any fond affection western countries are offshoring
Projects to India.If not today India ,they will look for new
destinations where cheaper resource are available in abundant.
The prevailing scenario will continue good for next 5-10 years.
There are new areas apart from IT where India is really benifitting
like
1. call centres
2. Bio Technology
3. back office (accounting,billing,auditing)
4. research
5. Hospital industry
6. Medical billing etc etc.................100's
which are indeed generating lots of money to Country.offcourse the
English language proficiency helps India on all this a lot.
Once offshoring started big scale in all areas ,real estate cost in
India has started soaring all time high.Rising economic hopes in
India have spiraled a chain reaction where by NRI who have till
date showed least Interest in India have started to rediscover and
and investing heavily.
They have started investing there billions of dollars back home on
Land,Industry etc.
we Indians always tend to Jump in to same bandwagon or follow
enmasse rather to be trend setters.Try to explore avenues like Trade
(export/import),Manufacturing,Ever Green(shelter/food/clothing)
industries,inventions etc
Indians have great potential/talent with there rich culture and
moderate approach from there upbringings.Also they lack to identify
there own potential,which needs to be identified and tapped by
others.
For those who take risk there is always reward.
Cinema, Fries, Latte ---- Anniyan
One Saturday night I went to "Anniyan" film in
Innovative complex here in Bangalore. They have someway
gambled the show timings so that 11.15 was night show.
After waiting for long, the crowd started pushing people
even before the previous show ended.
Film starts with a Irish (sorry iyerish) essence
showing agraharam vikram ambhi. First half of the film
was damn shit that I wish i cud have come to the second
half directly. Felt bad for the people who pushed
through the gates to see the show. Only vive was the
Anniyan in the first half to give some good comedy to
make people sit.
Songs were all not that good that people went out for
fag whenever there is a song though the picturisation
was good. Music was not that good.
Since it was a night show some people utilized the
time properly by sleeping.Then came the interval as a
rescue for everyone. Like boys, I think shankar has
given the direction to someone in the first half.
Second half was good enough to give “The Value for
Money “solution for people like us. There is one
matrix fight which was good and vikram scored well in
the second half. The concept of following the rules
and killing the people who violates by shankar was "
Old monitor in a New bottle ". Anyway kasaka thaan
poguthu.
And the concept of multi-personality vikram is similar
to chandramukhi (remade from a 5yr old malayalam
movie) and hence was boring. People never think on
their own.
Second half went faster and hence made people to sit
and watch. Unnecessary graphics, expenses and one
macho romantic personality of vikram spoiled the show.
Sadha's role was saadha. Not that great.
Shankar in general can give up direction and can
produce movies giving chance to directors like one he
Did for the film "kadhal". Five star hotels cannot
produce good "Kothu parota" (which people like) kathai
thaan intha Anniyan.
Anniyan --> Onion ( Vengayam nu solla vanthen
After writing this blog post, I have seen this movie for 3 times. Contradictory. Thanks to my american life and Thanks to the tamil film industry which couldn't provide a film better than this till then
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