Life..

He looked at his watch as he started from office. It was 7:30 pm. A grueling 12 hour day at work as usual. The work had increased exponentially in recent times leaving little time for any other pursuit. In the morning he had a fight with his wife for missing their son’s annual school day function, where he was awarded the best student of the academic year. But then he had no choice, as he had to attend an important client meeting around the same time. He made a quiet promise to himself to make it up with an exotic vacation next year and things would again be fine.

He shut down his laptop, packed his bag and rushed down the stairs to get out of the office. There was still 20 minutes left to catch the next train home, so he made his way to the local florist. His wife loved red roses. Maybe taking a few of them home would lighten her mood up a bit, especially after what happened in the morning. The florist round the corner was still open. He quickly got a nice bunch of roses for his wife. Then he rushed to the shop opposite the florist to grab a bar of chocolate for his son. This was his own little way of compensating for the missed annual day function. 

The time was 8:20 p.m. He quickly made his way to the station, just in time to catch the 8:27 local back home. The train arrived on time as usual, although with lesser crowd as the peak hours had passed. He quickly grabbed a corner seat near the window and waited for the 20 minute journey back home to end.

Life over the past few years had become very hectic ever since he was promoted as Project Manager. He was given 3 huge accounts to manage and was under constant pressure to achieve targets and show results. Even his weekends were spent on preparing presentations or responding to e-mails, barely leaving time to do anything else or spend time with the family.

He recollected that his father was complaining for a long time about his eyesight growing weak. He had promised to take him to the eye specialist but that was close to a year ago. Now his father had lost eyesight in one of his eyes. His mother wished to go on a pilgrimage and as a dutiful son he had promised to take a couple of weeks’ vacation and take her on a tour to the holy lands. There was no time for that either and his mother he knew had quietly resigned and reconciled to the fact that she will never be able to go on a pilgrimage. He barely remembered visiting them over the past year although they stayed in the same city. Conversation mostly happened over phone and even that would be done in a hurry as there would always be some important call waiting.

As he sat near the window taking in the cool breeze and thinking about his life, a change began to happen. This was not his life. This was not the way he wanted things to be. A few years back, he was in love, married the prettiest lady he knew. Then they were blessed with the most adorable kid on the planet, and there was no end to their joys. Weekends would be spent with his parents, and the little kid would have a whale of a time with his grandparents.

But then this raise happened. Promise of a huge salary raise, along with employee stock options and power to bring in change was tempting. Now he was making a lot of money, but was missing out on the important joys of life. Every weekend he would promise his son that they would go on a picnic only for it to be postponed for the next weekend. His son had now stopped asking about the picnic anyway. To get rid of the guilt feeling he had occasionally resorted to drinking and that was beginning to show on his health. 

This was not the change he had bargained for. This was not the kind of life he wanted to lead. He wanted to get back to the days where he would help his wife in the kitchen, those days where he would play cricket with his son, those Sundays which were spent with his parents listening to their experiences and watching the joy on their faces as they played with their grandson. The good old days. 

His station had arrived. As he got down from the train, he made an important decision. He decided to put an end to this. This month would be his last day at work. There was no point taking up so much stress and making all that money if he was missing out on all the important things in life. It just did not seem right anymore.

He decided to head straight home and inform his wife about the decision. Then call his parents to inform then that he would be coming over with the family on Sunday. He made a note to book an appointment for his father with the eye-specialist. And the first thing he would do after quitting was take his mother on that pilgrimage she yearned to go on.

Yes, he had decided. He was going to change his life now. Excited, he walked as fast as his legs could carry him.

Just then his phone beeped. It was a message from his wife. He kept on walking as he read the message. ‘Come home soon, have made your favorite dish, love you’ it read.

He smiled. He barely realized that as he read the message, he had stepped on to the road and had failed to notice the speeding lorry fast approaching him. 

I am back!

Back after a considerably long gap. In the time that I was away I attended three B-School interviews, at IIM B, IIM C and ISB and got rejected by all three. Then with nothing much left to do and buggered by the daily drudgery of office work, I took to running. And then got addicted to it. As of today I have completed 7 Half Marathons and one 10 km race, with my best official timing in half marathon being 2 hrs and 31 minutes and best unofficial timing in the 10 km being an hour and 3 minutes. The aim is to get the time in half marathon down to 2:15 first and then under 2 hours but before that I have a full distance coming up this December at The Wipro Chennai Marathon, preparation for which is in full swing.

Being in the field of IT starts taking a toll on you after a few years, and in the absence of any activity that can help one get their mind off the regular drudgery, life can be quite irritating and depressing at times. Staying on the road running and meeting people from all walks of life has helped bring a different perspective on life, thankfully. While I was frustrated after the end of the B-School rejections and eager to have a crack at GMAT again and reapply, the time off has allowed me to take a step back and re-evaluate my options. Although reapplication still remains an open option, I no longer feel the need to rus up things. The road to running has also led me on a path to self discovery and right now I am finding it exhilarating to say the least. As I look back at the interviews the only one I seem to remember at any length is the IIM C interview, and that too because I happened to meet a stellar Prof who asked really pertinent questions in the interview rather than the usual stuff. IIM B was really a joke with the panel trying to put me under stress, which did not amuse me at all. Working for 9+ years in IT, catering to stiff clients from the UK and US has its own share of stress and nothing in a classroom or a B-School interview can simulate the same kind of stress. ISB was thorougly average and I am not so keen in applying to the same program again, while exploring other programs later on remains an option.

But for now, all roads lead to my next event on December which I am really eager to finish strong. Long term wish is to participate in a minimum of 200 events worldwide. I recollect a remark made to a friend the other day - I wish to die at the age of 90, at the end of an ultra marathon, medal clutched in my hand and a blissful smile on my face. Nothing else matters.

Ciao!  

Do you have the stuff in you to become a 'Manager'?

Being a non-manager level IT employee can be quite frustrating at times. Especially when you realize that you are the one who is billable, does all the dirty work and slogs like a dog to get revenue to the project but in the end always end up watching the non billable managers walk away with the fat bonuses while all you get is a piece of paper in your hand with your name and with a 'Awesome Peformer', 'Shaktimaan of the quarter' etc as heading scribbled on top of it.

You might have also overheard this a lot of times during the promotion cycle - 'Oh, I don't think he is manager stuff, he always sticks to his own work' or 'I don't think he is manager material. Voice doesn't sound good on the phone' etc.

That then made me wonder, how does anyone know if you are 'Manager material' or not? That's when I realized that they might as well be having a questionnaire of sorts which they pass it on to the wannabe Managers and then decide whether to elevate a candidate to the elite level of IT Manager.

And perhaps the questionnaire might be similar to the one I present below. So if you are on of those non manager, unimportant and inconsequential IT employee, you would do well to answer the below questionnaire and find out if you will ever get to be a Manager before you have a grandchild. So here goes..

1. What time do you usually come to office?
   a. 8 a.m.
   b. 9a.m.
   c. Anytime between 12 p.m. to 4 p.m.

2. What time do you leave from office?
  a. As soon as work is over
  b. 6 p.m.
  c. As soon as lunch is over

3. What time do you expect your subordinates to come to office?
 a. 8 a.m.
 b. 9 a.m.
 c. I expect my team to be in office 24/7

4. If your project is doing very well currently what would you do?
 a. Let it continue as is without intervening
 b.Make a few minor changes here and there to ensure all is smooth
 c. Ask the team to come up with crazy ideas and implement drastic changes across the board and screw the project

5. What according to you is the most important trait of a successful manager?
a. Leading by example
b. Being a team man
c. Good looks, hairstyle and knowing when to be a doormat for executive management

6. Do you like to work on client deliverables and get billing to the project?
a. Yes definitely
b. Sometimes
c. Err.. what is billing?

7. On what basis do you give the ratings to your subordinates during appraisal time?
a. Work done on client deliverables
b. Work done for account
c. Depends. Best rating for my cronies, 2nd best for people who decorated my cubicle on my Birthday and lowest ratings for the remainder

8. Do you believe in needless intervention?
a. Not at all
b. Sometimes
c. I am a staunch supporter of needless intervention

9. What will you do if one of your subordinates made a minor mistake which caused a test case to fail during User Acceptance Testing?
a. Let it be. We are all humans and make mistakes sometimes
b. Set up a meeting with the person and ask him/her to be careful in future
c. Raise hell and immediately ask the team to come up with a 500 point checklist to avoid such minor mistakes in future.

10. If one of your subordinates meets with an accident and is off work for a couple of weeks, what will you do? 
a.Visit him/her and wish him/her to get well soon
b. Send a get well soon card with a note at the bottom to report as soon as possible to office
c. Immediately inform the HR on the lack of leaves of the subordinate and force them to deduct pay of the subordinate. Send people from project to find out if he/she actually met with accident. Screw his/her rating during appraisal time.

How to score:
Give yourself 0 points for every 'a', 1 point for every 'b' and 2 points for every 'c'.

What your score means: 
0 to 5 - You might never get a chance to break through the glass ceiling and enter the hallowed portals of the IT Managers world because you take work seriously and perhaps too straightforward to handle such elite roles and responsibilities. 

6 - 12 - There is a slim chance for you yet if you decide to mend your ways. Probably would make sense to appoint your manager as you career coach and start taking lessons.

13 - 20 - You are the one! You were born to be at the management level!  Just continue on your path and wait as promotion after promotion lands on your lap.

Your Friendly Neighbourhood IT Employee (FNITE)

Hi everyone. My name is..... well it doesn't matter what my name is. Let's say I am your Friendly Neighborhood IT Employee (FNITE). I am the one whom you can spot on weekdays, full shirt and tie, huge bag on my shoulders and walking oblivious to the traffic and surroundings, either texting on my iphone or listening to the latest tunes on ipod. I believe that like every great personality does, I too should pen down my autobiography. But that for later. Right now I think I should begin by letting the world know more about me and my brigade. Because there is so much I want the world to know about their FNITE!

And what better place to do it than in the very space that gives meaning to my very existence on this planet. I mean it is here that I can act cool, tough and all that other adjectives that you wouldn't quite associate with me in real life. But as far as I am concerned my real life ain't real. I don't get what I want to be in real life but I can be all I want to be within the 4 walls of my cubicle and in the virtual world. Makes me feel good I tell you.

So coming back to the point. I believe that I should let the world know more about me. I think, the world knows so little about their FNITE. Especially given the fact that there are more IT Employees on the road today than stray dogs, it's time that the world got up and took notice of us, the representatives of the most elite brigade on the planet. This autobiography is just the first step towards forcing the world to acknowledge the presence of the FNITE.

Every morning I walk out of my house, in my formals (complete with a tie), Ray Ban glasses enhancing my looks and swaying to and fro to the tunes of my Ipod. The tie, Ray Ban and Ipod, in that order are very important lest the onlookers think that I am one of those 'Common Men' who meander aimlessly and whose life has no significance in the broader scheme of thing in the universe. I board my company arranged transport (which I hate obviously) and give a frowning look to the fellow living beings also in ties, ray bans and Ipods. It is important to give that frowning look, else there is a danger of you being perceived as a misfit or worse still.. a fresher!

I believe that I am doing a great service to the nation by being an IT employee, perhaps greater than some of those uniformed personnel perched on top of some nondescript hills in the northern part of the country are doing. That is why I expect huge discounts in any store I walk into, I expect the government to go out of the way to provide me various facilities. I expect the railways to start an A.C. local service on the route I travel daily and I expect the State transport department to run special Volvo buses frequently and help me travel comfortably. I mean these are very basic expectations, I say! Especially when we FNITEs contribute so much to the economy by causing prices to rise! For example take real estate. Before the IT industry began did you ever hear of houses being rented out for 30k-50k per month? EVER? Then IT happened and gave birth to the FNITE. Group of FNITEs started frantically looking for houses wherever they landed. And since there would usually not be enough time to look for one, they would settle for any imaginary number the greedy house owner can come up with at that moment. For example, 6 FNITEs go looking for a house. They find one and the greedy owner asks 30K for a 800 sqft 2 BHK. Since FNITEs are good at math they immediately take out their calculators and divide the amount by 6. 5k each? That's a deal! The deal is closed and the prices in the neighborhood get corrected as every owner now stars demanding 30K for a 2BHK. And then people wonder why real estate prices are rising. Yes, they are rising, but for the common man, not the FNITE. Cause, for us the world is inhabited by two kinds of people, the IT Employee and the 'Common man'. So every time I refer to someone who is from the non IT world, I use the term  'Common man'. It's simple that way.

Now to my work life. Everyday, once I reach office, I do the mandatory check of the emails before I call up a fellow FNITE who is onsite at the opposite end of the globe. We then proceed to exchange excuses for a few minutes for not doing any work before we decide that it is too late to be discussing anything at all and end the call. Once this is done, I plunge into the most interesting and exciting aspect of my job. The discussions on the online forums. Yes!

The Online forums are a launching pad for all your ambitions, dreams, etc..something that you can use to be what you could never be in real life. Couldn't get? It's complicated. So let me walk you through a bit on this part.

It  works like this. On the forums you got to pretend. Whatever be the topic you should always come across as The Expert and been-there-and-done-that types. If the discussion is on cricket then there probably never was a greater captain and all rounder than you and you left the game only because your great grandfather on his deathbed had wished that you become an Engineer! If the discussion is on Football then you should make it obvious that Cristiano Ronaldo got picked up by Real Madrid only because of that darn last minute niggle in your hamstring. Got the drift? It's very simple right? If the discussion is not on Sports but a general one, then also the same rule applies. For example if the discussion is on Stray dogs and the nuisance they are causing in an area, you should immediately point out in big colored font that you have seen more stray dogs than anyone else in the whole world. And then walk away feeling very important.

I apply the rules mentioned above to every discussion I get into, on the forums, and keep a track of my score (the number of times I got one up on my opponent in the forum). The more my score, the more important I feel about myself and my life.

Now and then, I also find time to raise concerns on some trivial issues to the higher management in my organization, just to keep them working and also letting them know that I am still around!

I also make it a point to participate in all the 'Fun activities' which are arranged now and then in my organization. I mean work-life balance is so important you know. It really is exciting to 'Dress your Manager' or 'Paint your Manager' at the end of a grueling hard days work. Not to mention the thrilling activities like Sack Race, Spoon Race, Tyre Race, Vegetable Carving, Cubicle Decoration... workplace is fun I tell you! I never felt so much accomplished in my life till today.

Come appraisal time, and I list down all these accomplishments in bullet points in a power point slide. There are two big applications on which the entire IT industry stands. One is the excel sheet, and the other is the power point. Sometimes makes me wonder if the IT industry would have managed to take off, if Bill Gates decided not to launch Windows and had ventured into stock trading instead. So, I list down all my accomplishments, such as how many spoon races I won, how many different colours I used to paint my manager, how many different vegetables I carved etc and present it before my manager. You have to be careful and point all these out more than your work. There is a general tendency of IT managers to frown upon people who talk about nothing but 'client appreciations', 'finishing work on time', 'bringing additonal revenue to the project', 'winning deals with client' etc etc. If you fall into that trap, the manager will simply ask 'What else did you do' and dismiss you from the scene. 

Oh by the way, before I forget, in between all these I also make it a point that I support various Social causes. Like for example I supported the Anti-Corruption movement started by some guy called Anna Hazare (hope I got the spelling right) who went on a fast. No..no I mean I did not go to Delhi to join the fast and all. I mean Delhi is so far. I just forwarded a mail on the movement which came to my Inbox to my friends. And since I wanted to really support that movement I forwarded it to 200 of my friends (ya.. I got that many friends I tell you). I really feel that my forward has really benefited Anna Hazare and the anti-corruption thing that he has started. I feel so much like a responsible citizen when I do stuff like this. And the best part is I can still be in my cubicle with my backside perched in a cushiony seat and support any damn social cause by just forwarding mails! Advantage of being in IT I tell you. Maybe someday I too would be recommended for Bharat Ratna.. sigh!

I think I have let the world know enough about me for now. I mean I don't like too much publicity as well.. I am kind of shy when it comes to these things. If you really would like to know more about me, please mail me your questions. I have set my auto reply on.

Ciao!

© Murty NVD and Icemantalks, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Murty NVD and Icemantalks with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

It's Appraisal time!

Yeah. It's that time of the year again when all we techies wait for the one figure which will decide the bonus, the hike, the promotion and all other important decisions of our life. It is that time of the year, where the people who have worked their behinds off the whole of previous year will be waiting with bated breath for a good performance review while the one who were blissfully spreading 'gas' will be sucking up to their respective managers, some even volunteering to work as a household help for the manager. But for all you know your fate could be decided like this

(M1 - Manager 1, M2 - Manager 2,  XYZ - Random techie (could be you!))

Case 1: 
M1 - So what rating would you recommend XYZ? 
M2 - I will recommend the highest rating 1? 
M1 - Hmm.. can you justify?
M2 - He has really impressed the customer with his understanding of the application and has got multiple appreciations from them. Also he has won quite a few awards last year. 
M1 - Hmm.. but during the client visit last quarter, he blew only 25 balloons for decoration while on the average every team member was blowing 40. So I don't think he is a team player. I recommend a 2 and he might be pulled down to 3 as well if we find someone more deserving of a 2. 

Case 2: 
M2 - So what should we do about XYZ? 
M1 - 1 definitely! 
M2 - Why? 
M1 - Oh, he has got a great hairstyle! I really wish I had his head of hair. And he comes to office everyday too! 

Case 3: 
M2 - Now it's XYZ. I think he deserves a 1. He has been a top performer the whole of last year. I think we should recommend him for a promotion as well. 
M1 - Hey hold on, don't you know we have to compulsorily rate 5 percent of people in the lowest category. Let's say we put him on 4! 
M2 - But that is unfair. What will we tell him? 
M1 - Bah! The usual shit. Also, do you remember the way he was haggling with the auto wallah outside the campus gate over the rate? I think that shows he is unprofessional. Good case to pull him down I say! 

So you see, it doesn't matter what you have done the entire year, it doesn't matter how many tasks you have accomplished or how many certifications you have completed. All that matters is the opinion of  two or more people who have absolutely no idea of who you are or what work you have done.

And yet we waste so much of our time filling up those data points in the portal in the hope that at the end of the year the managers will look at them!

But the time has come now to revamp the system! No more time wasting, no more need to collect data points and appreciation mailers to present your case, no more headache for the manager's to look for an excuse. I introduce now, ladies and gentlemen, the latest tool which will change the way performance appraisals are done and one day probably will bring world peace!

So here we go. To start with, let's say we create a wheel which looks like this
 




A close look at the wheel will show that it is divided into 4 parts which represent the percentage of people who should be rated in a particular bracket (which is more or less same in all organizations). So we have 10% in the 1st bracket, 60% in the 2nd bracket, 25% in the 3rd bracket and 4% in the lowest bracket which is the 4th. 

Come appraisal time, call each candidate to the conference room and ask him/her what rating he/she is expecting. Something like this

Manager - So, what are you expecting? 
Random terrified techie - 1
Manager - (chuckles).. ok.. lets spin the wheel then! 

So the manager spins the wheel. Techie fold his hands in prayer, closes his eyes and starts chanting his/her good luck mantra. The wheel stops. Techie opens eyes. If it is a 1 Manager can say 'Congrats', if it stops at '4', 'Bad luck', let's try again next year'.

It's simple, ain't it pals? All the manager needs to say is 'Bad luck'! No need to discuss goals and accomplishments, no need to find faults, no need to sneak behind techies in the hope of catching him watching porn on his mobile!

And we techies can walk away either thanking our stars or cursing the darned cat that crossed our path just as we stepped out of the house.

But as it is with all path breaking theories, there is this minor niggle. As you know, anything and everything that happens inside of our organizations should follow a Bell curve. What is a bell curve you say? Well, it is in the words of Nassim Nicholas Taleb, 'That great intellectual fraud'. It looks like this







I am not quite sure at the moment if this technique of conducting performance appraisals would be able to achieve this dynamic shape. So whoever is spinning the wheel should actually be simultaneously plotting a graph as well. Any deviations in the shape might require a second spin of the wheel (or surreptitiously moving the dial to some other number while the Random terrified techie is busy chanting his/her good luck mantra)!

So here it is. Don't be surprised if your manager walks in with a round shaped object under his arms for the Performance appraisal discussion. It could be your 'Wheel of luck'. All the best!

Cheers..

© Murty NVD and Icemantalks, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Murty NVD and Icemantalks with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

To Kiran Ma'am

Over the past two days I have been following your tweets. Two of your tweets on Bollywood and the stuff depicted over there got me thinking. In one of the tweets you have said - "Do Item numbers not vet instincts?(Munni songs)Is it nt commodification of a woman's body?Does it not impact vulnerable minds? Any research". And in another of the tweets you say - "In d past I recall there were blatant Rape scenes in movies!Now those r subtle! Replaced by blatant exposure of woman's body to d maximum!"

I personally ma'am, am not a great fan of Bollywood. But while reading your tweets I had a few thoughts all of which could not be accomodated in the miserly 140 characters that twitter provides us. Hence this post.

To start with here are a few questions of my own - Who dances in the so called 'Munni songs' of Bollywood? Agreed that there is eventually a male director or producer somewhere but who danced in the famous 'Munni song' ? Who agrees to blatantly expose their bodies? Again I agree that there is a male somewhere in the picture but; who is eventually coming on screen and exposing their bodies? Is it not the actresses, the women in the film industry? Of course they charge a lump sum to do that, but that is out of scope here. Has any actress refused to do an item song or a rape scene or for that matter any scene because it involved too much exposure of the body? Are not the women then (read actresses) contributing towards commodification of their own bodies when it comes to Bollywood? Have you ever ma'am spoken to any of the actresses and asked them why do they expose so much on screen, especially since you think that it impacts vulnerable minds? Have you ever asked them why are they contributing towards commodotising a woman's body? I would love to hear the responses if you have indeed spoken to some.

Second, I am not sure but I assume that when you said 'vulnerable minds' you probably meant men whose minds could get easily corrupted by how a woman is depicted on screen. But, have you not seen school girls or college girls gyrating to those same Munni and Sheila songs in functions, dance competitions and reality shows? I am pretty sure that a few of  the noble women present at the protests in Delhi would have done that sometime or the other. Would you call those minds vulnerable as well?

Third, do you think that it is realistically possible to ask the Bollywood actresses not to expose on screen (and off screen as well) and start covering themselves from head to toe? Is it realistically possible to prevent the young school and college going girls from watching the item songs and later hum those same tunes and dance to it?

Science magazines may suggest that watching TV and movie violence changes brain function. But is it significant enough to actually make a person do something which he/she does not intend to do? Would you deny if I said that TV and movie violence is less important, rather inconsequential, but it is the surrounding environment and the circumstances which primarily shapes or changes brain function?

Let us face it. We find ourselves in the situation that we are in today because we always tend to focus more on the symptoms than the root cause. We tend to get carried away by the noise and forget to look at the main issue. Changing Bollywood to show only 'sati savitris' will not change anything. Showing less violence on TV will also not change anything. What we as a nation should eventually concentrate on is education, counselling and striving to improve the general living condition of the people. It might not show immediate results in the short run but in the long run things will definitely take a turn for the better. And therein lies the problem. Everyone in our country wants immediate results, immediate gratification, be it the politicians in the parliament or the person out there on the street. Especially our politicians, because long term policies never wins you elections, does it?

Also, next on my reading list is 'I Dare'. I apologise for not having read it earlier. Now since you have said that the book documents how gangrape is preventable, I am all the more curious.

 But the book sure does not say watch less bollywood and TV, does it?




 

It's time to Stand up

 So all the furore over the Delhi gangrape incident has stopped now it seems. Since the day the incident occured, the media, the public and everyone else out there on the street and inside their homes have left no stone unturned in voicing out their opinions and vehemently condemning the incident. Delhi saw an unprecedented wave of protests which eventually turned violent - as most protests in India usually do - and accounted for a life of a policeman on duty.

So what next? Where has all this led us to? Are we better off after the protests than we were before the protests? Has the death of a constable on duty achieved what the protests intended to achieve? All those noble men and women, can they say for sure that their protests will bear fruit and Delhi- or for that matter India - will be a safer place for women hereon?

There have been a plethora of opinions in the social circles and media after the incident. A former HR head of an IT major suggested chemical castration of the culprits and actually hoped it would act as a deterrent. But what was not explained or perhaps not thought of was, how does chemical castration after the incident help the victim? Will it surely act as a deterrent? In a country where men are violating women with complete disregard to the law of the land, confident that they will never be caught and even IF caught it will take a long time for the crime to be proved, how does having a clause 'Thou shalt be chemically castrated' act as a deterrent?

Lots of others have talked about how society should be reformed, how parents and schools should cautiously strive to eliminate the psychological differences that arise between the boy child and girl child and ensure that all are eventually on an equal footing. The Union HRD minister even talked about introducing moral science classes in schools. The primary ingredient to achieve that is fully functioning government schools across the country with regular teachers perhaps never crossed his mind. However amidst all this, no one explained that if they think all such measures will eliminate crime against women and earn them the respect that they so thoroughly deserve, then how do you explain the incidents of molestation, sexual harrasment and rapes that occur in high society, where people are seemingly well educated ? For that matter, how do you explain the sexual harassments that happen at the work place? I am sure, such people have been brought up in well educated families with working women in most cases, and have never been brainwashed to discriminate against women. Also I am pretty sure that they have been educated in schools where moral science is a part of the curriculum. Then how do you explain such men resorting to violence against women?

Of course along the way we also had the Babas and the AAPs who always wait earnestly for hijacking any event to further their own political - and often base - agendas.

The final blow however came from the head of the state, the Prime Minister. I have never seen an address which failed so hopelessly to connect with the target audience. Instead of calming an already agitated public, it acted like a catalyst in making the people more agitated and frustrated.  It is not 'theek hai' to remain so aloof to matters of public concern and be a passive mute spectator for so long. This was the time for the PM to come out strongly, take matters into his own hands and arrange for a complete overhaul of a hopeless system. The iron was hot. It was time to strike. Alas, nothing happened and the moment was allowed to pass and status quo restored. As always.

So what now? How do we ensure that women of this country feel safe when they are out of their homes? How do we ensure that parents can rest assured that their daughter who has gone to college will come back home unharmed?

Alas, there is no definite answer to these questions. Yes, you can have deterrent laws(chemical castration included), you can educate society to respect women, you can ensure definite conviction of transgressors. But all this might not even lead to a tangible difference in the crime rates against women. Sounds scary? Yes it does, but that is the cold truth.

Crimes against women happen because men think that women are vulnerable. They know that they will not be physically harmed since the women in most cases will not fight back. And after the incident, many women might not complain as well, for the fear of being stigmatized in society. Then there are cases where men simply don't care of the repercussions. All that matters is the immediate pleasure that commiting the act would bring them.

The women might ask, what should we do then? Are we ever going to be safe in this country? Will the system and society ever ensure our safety?

The answer is, the system can never ensure your safety. And what system and society are we talking about here? Where the cops immediately raise doubts over the chastity of a woman who goes to get her complaint registered? Where the judiciary system has loopholes big enough for a criminal to drive a car through it and escape? Where the general public stands aside and watches a teenage girl being publicly groped and molested while an over-zealous reporter is filming the act? Where some ministers sit in the assembly not to discuss important issues of public concern but to watch porn? Where the head of the state doesn't speak up and seems to be concerned more about the upcoming general elections that the plight of the public? Where every incident signifies nothing but just another means to further political agendas and settle political scores?

It is time to put an end to all this. It's time for each and every woman of this country to take matters of safety into their own hands.

The only way to achieve this, dear women, is to make the perverted men of this country fear you, the same way you fear them when you are standing alone waiting for a bus, or passing through a less populated street at night, or travelling in a cab all alone. Carry a knife if you must, and chop the b***s of the bugger who dares to touch you without your consent.  Use the same violence against them. If possible make it so violent that the message is sent out cold and clear to all those perverted minds out there, that no woman will never ever submit to another act of violence. Use the same loopholes in law which allow men to get away with violence against you. Society may tell you that violence is not the answer. That same society doesn't seem to be telling it's men the same. The judiciary may ask you not to take matters of the law into your own hands. That same judiciary has failed to protect you for so long.  Hence, the time has come for you to stop depending upon men, the system, the law and the society for your safety and well being. It is time for all women of  this country to stand up against this male chauvinism. Sweeping reforms may come or may not come. There is no time to wait.

It is time to send one message loud and clear - If you cannot respect us, then better fear us. 


© Murty NVD and Icemantalks, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Murty NVD and Icemantalks with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.