Thursday, September 14, 2006

Faith versus commercialization

Almost every other weekend, one of my team members pays a visit to Tirupati, and come Monday, the prasadam which he or she gets becomes much sought after in office. I have always been fascinated by Tirupati and have always longed to pay a visit to Tirupati, just to get a glimpse of the glory of Lord Venkateshwara.

According to Wikipedia (and my south-Indian colleagues, of course!), the Tirupati Devasthanam is one of the busiest religious centres in the world, and the second-richest, after the Vatican. Tens of thousands of pilgrims visit Tirupati everyday, and the number seems to be growing day by day. The annual collection ("income") of the temple, it seems, runs into billions of rupees.

I have always pondered over what makes Tirupati one of the most frequented sacred places in southern India. Tirumala and Tirupati, no doubt, have a rich cultural heritage and religious history, not to mention the exotic natural beauty and picturesque surroundings. But recent times have seen Tirupati getting "commercialized" to such an extent that it makes one wonder whether it is really the faith in The Lord or the hype surrounding Tirupati that makes hordes of devotees flock to this temple town.

I am not particularly comfortable with the idea of an "entry fee" just to get a glimpse of The Lord. Even then, you get The Lord's darshan for only a few minutes, and sometimes more, if you are fortunate (the average darshan time is one and a half minutes, they say). My friends say it is possible to prolong the darshan, by making an "offering" to the temple staff...

I strongly believe that The Lord resides everywhere; even if one does visit Him, he or she should have complete freedom to be with Him for as long as he or she desires. But then, that is not always feasible (and possible) in a temple which boasts of thousands of devotees visiting every hour.

Devotees make their offerings in kind, and mostly gold and silver jewellery. As the name itself suggests, offerings are made with faith and devotion. But recently, such offerings have become a symbol of prestige and social status: the more you offer, the more devout you are. Such things do nothing more than add to the commercialization, by encouraging a "wealth-offering competition" between devotees, if it can be called that way. Devotees should compete in faith, not in terms of the value of offerings made to Him.

Before anyone gets mad, I have nothing against true faith and offerings made in full devotion... What I find disturbing is the commercialization of God and the artificiality and the hype surrounding it that is rearing its ugly head of late...

Oh, a bit of trivia to end (courtesy Wikipedia, for those of you who are too lazy to click on links): Tonsuring, the sacrifice of hair, which is performed at Tirupati as a symbol of devotion, is responsible for making India the largest exporter of hair in the world! ;-)

Monday, September 04, 2006

A "management" job: Is it worth it?

One dilemma that graduate engineers often face when they think of higher education is whether they should go for a post-graduation in management (Master of Business Administration: "MBA") or technology (Master of Technology: "MTech", as it is called in India, or Master of Science: "MS").

I have seen many of my friends go through this "trauma". Although I feel this decision is a matter of each one's personal preferences, I would like to share my thoughts, something which has been going on in my mind for quite a long time now.

In India, traditionally, "white-collar" jobs have always been seen with a sense of respect not normally associated with "blue-collar" people (who, needless to say, were always the "butt of ridicule"). This has not changed much in recent times. Even today, people generally tend to view managers as mystic beings who possess divine powers...

Given the industry scenario in India, it is a well-known fact that management jobs pay you much more than technical jobs. What seems to attract young people to management is primarily these lucrative offers. And then there is always that dream of making it big one day, and management jobs, with their fat salaries, give you the chance of doing that early on in life (as in "I'm just 23 and I already own a Honda City!"). This goes down well with today's youth, who are forever in search of that perfect recipe for "instant success".

The thing that bothers me is that technically brilliant people, who have a great chance of contributing to technology, opt for a career in administration and management, because their parents want them to "rule", or simply because all they care for is money. This step is simply not right, and moreover, it does not do any justice to their technical skill-sets.

If we are to transform India into a technological hub, what we require is technically focused people, who are passionate to work in the field of research and development, who desire to work on cutting-edge technologies... Getting into high-end management jobs and "brain-drain"ing your skills isn't going to help much.

Of course, one may argue that India is already making a mark in the global IT industry; the likes of TCS, Infosys and Wipro are already rubbing shoulders with IT giants like IBM and Accenture. But what we need to understand is that all these Indian companies are into services. A service-based business model ensures steady revenue flows and industry sustenance, but it does little in terms of value addition in the long term.

Coming back to the main topic, nevertheless, a skilled management workforce is necessary for large organizations, who have to maintain high standards of efficiency and see to it that resources are being properly utilized. In that sense, administration and management can be considered to be quite a challenging job... And moreover, if you start off with a non-management job, in the long term, there is always a push towards management; you are expected to don managerial responsibilities as you progress upwards in the organizational hierarchy.

However, for a techie like me, the more away I am from management tasks, the better...

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