The exhibition showcased work from the final year fine arts students from the Stella Maris College for Girls – and before you jump to any conclusions I would like to lay to rest any vicious rumours that the only reason I went was to mingle with exceptionally pretty young 20-something girls…that was just an added bonus (note to mother: I really AM trying!).

Indian art gallery

Art...really!

Now this is art that even I can appreciate!

Now first and foremost I should say that I am by no means an art critic (ha! Imagine!) and I think a lot of the art scene is so far up its own arse they’ve lost touch with reality.

With that said and out of the way, I was really taken aback by just how good exceptional a lot of the work was. I don’t know my Classic from Renaissance (private ‘in’ joke there, wonder if they’ll get it), but I do know what I like when I see it. To me, what I like is waaaaay more important than what some pompous art/design critic says.

Infact, I liked what I saw so much, I’ve decided to actually go ahead and buy some (yeah, it came as a complete surprise to me too!), the problem is, I can’t decide which pieces to buy because I’d happily take them all, so I’m going the ask the audience and see what you think. Take a look at the photos, and let me know if you have any opinions!

I really like this one

I love the green and black on this one

I have no idea why, but it's great!

This is actually my personal favourite...but I couldn't tell you why

i love the colours and the style of hair

It's quite an ethnic feel to it

I want to be very clear on this, I don’t want to be mistaken! I’m not turning arty farty, I’m not buying them as an investment, I just genuinely like them, and at the price they are being sold at, they are a bargain!

I’m usually very harsh about the creativity of Indians because in my line of work it’s incredibly hard to find good graphic designers (my old work colleague, Vel might be an exception here), but these pieces show me that there are very talented artists…if only I could convince them to come and try their hand at web design!

The highlight of the inauguration was a live painting by an artist called R.B. Bhaskaran who regularly sells his art work across the globe for thousands of pounds. He literally stood there in the gallery while everyone was watching and painted this – although on a personal note, in this case I prefer the students work to the one he knocked up in 30 minutes.

R.B. Bhaskaran painted this in 30 minutes!

By comparison Chennai is thought to have a population of around 8.2m, but like London, this figure varies widely depending on how you define the city limits and even who you talk to.

According to Wikipedia, London has a greater metropolitan area of 659 sq mi whereas Chennai has an area of 459 sq mi, this is quite difficult to imagine, so using the power of Photoshop and Google Maps you can see visually how the two cities stack up against each other.

Update: So I got around to making this map and this just blurs the lines even more, because looking at this comparison map (and I took care to line up the scales) Chennai looks about 1/5th (sorry Tom!) the size of London…so what boundaries are they using for London to say it covers 659 square miles?!

So how is Chennai able to fit so many more people in to a space that is roughly 2/3rds the size of London?

Well, for one, unless you are in the upper echelons of the super wealthy (and I’m talking multi-millionaires in dollars and pounds) there is simply no way to afford a house on your own plot of land in Chennai. Ten years ago it might have been possible on the outskirts of the city, but not today unless you can afford to spend millions of pounds on a patch of land.

Where London is made up of low density terrace houses which are two or three stories, Chennai is made up of thousands of individual apartment blocks, 4 stories or more tall with two or more apartments per floor. This is the kind of place most of the middle classes live in in the city.

As fast as property developers can build these apartments, they are being snapped up by a desperate crowd, which is remarkable given that we’ve come off the back of the worst recession in living memory, mortgage rates are 9% and up and even getting a mortgage in the first place is hard enough thanks to the prudent nature of the banks here – something maybe the west would do well to remember next time!

Property prices here in Chennai go beyond the ridiculous, sail past the insane and end in the ether somewhere along with British ‘low’ budget airlines. If you compare property prices with the UK, then yes, it’s much cheaper, you can buy an apartment in Chennai for £100,000 which is cheaper than anywhere in London, however if we use my company for comparison you’ll understand how crazy it is.

The company I work for is your standard Indian outsourcing company, the stuff the Indian dream and western corporate downsizing is made of. We’re about 200 strong and considered a decent medium sized company. Since it’s IT we pay well above the average salary compared to other industries.

The average employee earns around Rs 300,000 per year (Rs = Rupees), which is about £4,230 in proper money*. And that’s before tax and deductions of course.

The small 2 bedroom apartment I’m living in at the moment cost Rs 6,000,000 (£84,700) when it was purchased brand new two years ago, in other words, it’s 20x the average salary of an IT worker. After two years, the property prices have gone up so much they reckon this place is now worth Rs 10,000,000 (£141,200)! Wow!

Now back to the population thing. I consider this apartment that I live in large enough for myself. If I was married it might just be big enough for two people. But incredibly there are entire families living in the other apartments; literally it’s Mum, Dad, the kids, granny and granddad. I have no idea how they manage it, there’s only two bedrooms! But you understand why they have no option when you see how stupid the property prices are here, the average person will find it very difficult to buy a place of their own – and we (that is England as a society) think we have problems with the younger generation getting on the property ladder!

Ah yes, now I remember what the point of this entry was. The family that lives opposite to me were renting the apartment from a landlord, because that’s the only thing they can afford to do. However, even the rental prices are prohibitively expensive in Chennai. The family opposite were paying around Rs 200,000 (£2,800) per year, which is 2/3rds of the average IT salary! So even to rent a small apartment it takes an entire family to live there and contribute to the rent costs.

Oh, and on top of this, where it’s custom to give a one month deposit in England for renting, in Chennai the deposit is a minimum of 10 months up front! How people actually manage to put a roof over their head I don’t know!

The family opposite have just moved out, and when I was talking to my friend they said it was because landlords here don’t like people staying in their place for too long, otherwise the tenants might start to think they own it and have more rights than they actually do. Since it’s so difficult to find reasonable cost housing here, moving is something people only choose to do as a last resort, and once you’ve found somewhere, unless you can afford to upgrade, there’s no way you want to move.

So the landlords will give the tenants one years notice because a) it takes the occupiers so long to find an alternative place and b) it’s seen as a reasonable amount of time to give some one. My friend said that even if the landlord tried to evict the tenants, they would have to deal with a lot of angry people who will take the occupiers side and the whole thing could get very messy.

Sorry, keep going off at tangents. The family opposite me, despite living there for just 1 year got their 1 year eviction notice 12 months ago, and the time just came for them to move out yesterday. According to my maid, they still haven’t been able to find anywhere to live after a year of looking (even during the recession when things should be slow!). Apparently the mother of the family got so desperate she asked my maid for the number of the person who owns my apartment to see if they would be willing to accept a higher price than what I am paying!

Yesterday morning the old family moved out – for no other reason than the landlord didn’t want them staying there too long – and by the evening a new family had moved in. That’s how much in demand residential space is. As far as I know, and according to the maid (she’s better than a secretary for the amount of gossip she gets!), the family moving out don’t have a place to call home now, staying at friends and relatives instead.

Although there is a big push from the Indian Government to try and build ‘affordable’ housing from what I can see and what the local papers are saying, it’s mostly been all words so far. Developers can earn huge mark-ups on grander projects than they can from affordable housing, so from a business point of view there is no logical reason or incentive to build cheap housing when they’ve got plenty of demand from people who are prepared to pay high prices and then cram every member of the family in to the apartment.

The scary part is that it’s just going to get worse and worse as India grows at 8% year on year.

*Just trying to get a rise out of my Indian friends!

Photo credit: Konkrete – iStockphoto

We are always being invited to hear him sing, and despite having not a single clue on what he’s singing about, people often go along to support him and attempt understand what’s going on. I’ve only been to see him sing once and I was completely confused, however when he invited us to listen to him sing on Saturday evening I decided, since I had bugger all else to do, to go along.

Now, this being India when you get given an address you should always head over to Google maps and try and ascertain exactly where the place is because in Chennai they have the most archaic address system known to man. Take my address for example. I live on 3rd Cross Street and the house number is 20. Except it’s also on 2nd Main Road and the house number is 26. To further complicate matters there are no less than four 3rd Cross Streets in my local area and this causes no end of fun when trying to get a home delivery or explain to a taxi driver where you live so he can pick you up. The zip/postal code system still eludes India. Oh. Wait. Not fun. Trauma.

In this instance we were told that the concert was being performed at a place called Spaces, #1 Elliots Beach Road. A quick lookup on Google Maps identifies the location and we were good to go.

When we arrived we looked up and down the road. There was no place called “Spaces”. We asked in a few shops. There was still no place called “Spaces”. We found a building that claimed to be #4 Elliots Beach Road, but unless our friend was performing in one of the houses next door we decided to discount it as pure conjecture. That coupled with the fact that the building was on a different road to what Google claimed to be Elliots Beach Road.

So after a bit of wandering we ended up walking down a little side street that we would never have gone down. It was packed with tiny little one room houses which doubled up as a shop front, the merchandise spilling out in to the street and selling everything from sea shells to mobile phones.

As we continued down this street we heard the sound of drums being played and suddenly the cramped lane opened out in to a big square overlooked by one of the biggest temples I’ve seen in Chennai.

Up on stage were a group of dancers playing the drums and putting on a bit of a performance. We stayed and watched by the sidelines, not meaning to stay very long when the friend I was with suddenly became mobbed by a load of Indians – she’s well over 6ft tall, female and white and hence is a giant magnet for young inquisitive Indian males

Before we knew it we were chatting away to these university students from Pune (pronounced “pooh-nay” for the ignorant westerners reading my blog). It’s all the usual questions that I’ve mentioned in a previous and somewhat controversial blog post.

The thing that strikes me is just how friendly, inquisitive and innocent people are here. If this had been England, or most other western countries for that matter, and a couple of tourists rocked up to watch a cultural performance they wouldn’t get a second glance, but in India you get mobbed by people asking a million questions and wanting to know all about you, all about England, what you think of India – everything.

So we weren’t planning on sticking around but before we knew it they were making space for us, finding and offering us chairs to sit down, explaining what was going on, explaining about the dancers and singers, telling us about themselves and generally being extremely friendly.

My mum asked if we felt a little bit overwhelmed or out of our depth or concerned out our safety because you can literally be surrounded by dozens of people asking questions, wanting photos, trying to get you to go somewhere, but in Chennai I’ve never considered personal safety to be an issue, even late at night walking down deserted roads I’ve never felt unsafe, so speaking, interacting and joining with a big group of locals is perfectly ok. Even walking down the little sidestreet is fine because people will treat you with curiosity rather than any malice. It might be different in other parts of India, but definitely not in Chennai.

Back to the show…just like in Ooty, we quickly became a bigger attraction than the show itself as more people gathered round.

What was happening was that this show was a kind of internal, inter-state cultural exchange, designed to get people to understand more about other states’ cultures…err, through the medium of dance. They were all young people showcasing singing and dancing from the state they were from.

It actually turned out to be a really good show, and it just typifies India in that we were made to feel very welcome and everyone is so interested in you and were all so keen to tell us what’s going on. It’s just not something you’d ever find in the west.

It also sums up a lot about India that’s very hard to put your finger on, but it’s something along the lines of “things always tend to work out in the end”. We had originalyl gone to see our friend sing, we got stumped by TII (this is India) but ended up landing on our feet by having a great evening and chatting to loads of people. It’s difficult to put in to words just how differently guests are treated

Once the show finished, they even took my friend in to the massive temple that was next door to show her around. They even wanted us to join them for dinner but we were being picked up by another friend so had to say our goodbyes, however, not before all the photos were taken and they even asked us to give them our signature and write a little bit about India! No idea where they got the pen and paper from but once we had finished it was passed around so everyone could read it.

This is what I wrote…

India has a wonderfully diverse culture with some of the most friendly, welcoming and accommodating people in the world. It’s well known for the incredible food and the passion that people have for it. India is like no where else on Earth which is why so many tourists come to experience it. Jai Ho!

Haha, they loved the “Jai Ho” bit!

And now for some photos…

The sun sets over my apartment on 13th February

These guys were from Uttar Pradesh (I think)

They were pretty energetic dancing around the stage

Wonder what the Health & Safety Executive would have to say about this!

Massive temple right on the beach

My friend was mobbed by people from Pune

Soon more people came over and took photos

Even I couldn't escape as they lined up to have their photo taken with me

These people were from Kerala and the girl had an incredible voice!

...She was also quite pretty

These guys were from...India. It was basically like Morris dancing with bells and sticks

This girl from Pune did a very sensual dance - lots of wiggling!

We were quite the tourist attraction!

These guys...not too sure what they were doing!

Huge crowds of people were there

My new friend from North East India working in a shop here in Chennai

And now, nearly two years to the day later, I had my fortune told again, but not by a palm reader, this time it was a little green parakeet (or parrot if you want the Indian word for it). Seriously, a little bird that’s kept in a tiny cage picks up some bits from a pile and based on that it can tell you your past, present and future. A bit like in A Christmas Tale, but replace the ghosts with a green bird.

So based on which cards the bird chose, the fortune was able to tell me (via a translator) the following:

Past:

– The course and education which I studied was different to what I actually wanted to study or should have studied.

– Just a few years back I had some associations with some girls which was not so good (nothing’s changed there then!)

Present:

– I have a good time to get married right now (yikes!)

– What I have now is much better in terms of relationships with friends and my life now is much better and what I’m choosing to do is much better than what I was doing before.

– I will not expect my parents money, or any of their wealth, or rather I would not be keen on taking it. I am more keen to make my own money than to take it. (doesn’t that make you feel much better, mum?)

– Apart from my job which I am currently doing, I will be having another income which pays me well. (seriously, how do they know this stuf?!)

Future:

– Some good news will come will come in 20 days (I will post back here on the 4th March, watch this space I guess)

– I have the opportunity to go to different parts of the world from India (Kenya!)

Funnily enough, the American client we were with and my boss had their fortune told as well and especially in the case of my boss the parakeet was particularly accurate about their past.

Eek!

Oh yes, if you are Indian and you are reading this then I should forewarn you that you might get a little bit upset because I’m about to insult your country and your litter culture. While I welcome your comments and thoughts about the Indian attitude to littering there is no need to vent about something unrelated like the “western superiority complex”. The issue at hand is litter. Stick to it

The modus operandi for Indian citizens is to have a mutual dislike with neighbouring states, much like the rivalry between England and Scotland. The dislike intensifies when talking about North India and South India. The South believes the North are all stupid (and given the latest case of student visa fraud in the UK, they may have a point) and the North generally regards the South as prudish and socially repressed (which again, is a fair point!).

But that all changes the moment someone insults or makes fun of India and you suddenly find that you have 1.2 billion very angry citizens to contend with.

Jai Hind. (roughly translates to “Victory to India”).

Take for example the racist attacks in Australia. The whole of India is currently united in their hatred of Australia with the forums and blogs full of tirades denouncing Australians as fundamentally racist.

(This of course coming from a country with a thousand years of the Caste system and where low caste communities have barriers and walls built around them to stop them coming near areas of high caste community, or where low caste people have to be buried in separate cemeteries to high caste people, or can’t even enter a temple of their faith)

Anyway, for a country that can be so patriotic and united, they appear to have very little respect for the land in which they live. It’s perfectly normal to be driving along, drinking a bottle of Coke and when you are finished with it, wind down the window and chuck it out, no matter where you are, or who it might hit.

Car interiors are kept spotlessly clean because whenever you are finished eating or drinking anything the packaging goes straight out the window. It doesn’t matter if it’s paper, plastic, metal, with not a thought for the environment (or who it might hit as it’s launched from the car) it gets unceremoniously dumped.

Thinking of taking the family out (and this is India, the immediate family will consist of 40 people) for a picnic on a Sunday afternoon? They will certainly come back with less than they took because all the food packaging, wrappers, containers etc. will be left behind, not even placed in to a bin, joining the rest of the litter from other family picnics.

When my company had a sports day, catering was laid on, plastic cups and plates were provided along with water bottles. At the end of the day when people were leaving what happened to all that rubbish? It was left behind, strewn across the playing fields, a job for someone else to pick up.

The point I’m trying to make here is that having a disregard for the environment and others around you isn’t a problem of the minority of people or even a majority of people. This is EVERYBODY. It cuts through age, gender and socio-economic boundaries.

I was on a very scenic railway while in Ooty – it’s actually a UNESCO world heritage site. I was sat in the first class carriage and a very wealthy middle class man in his early thirties was with his family. He was giving drinks and snacks to his young daughter and as she finished them he simply threw the packaging out the window, despite signs all over the place pleading people not to throw their litter.

I’ve challenged a few people on why they just throw their rubbish in the street instead of waiting to find a rubbish bin or taking it home and putting it in a bin there. The answers range from “why should we make our car get dirty” to “I feel tired carrying it around” to the ever arrogant “poor people can pick it up and sell it as scrap“. Yet bizarrely the same people will also agree that dumping rubbish is a big problem and people shouldn’t do it but without acknowledging that they are responsible for it.

Just why people drop their rubbish without a thought could take a deeper understanding of Indian culture than I’ve got in the last two years, but my own theories extend from the fact that middle and upper class people are so used to having other people do their dirty work (even I have a maid who cleans my apartment each day) that they are able to drop things in their own home and the maid will clean it up instantly. Whether it’s food packaging or spilt drink, the culprit rarely has to clean it up themselves.

Even in the office, an office boy will hand out small paper cups of tea and coffee and then has to go around clearing them all up as the office staff will not put them in the bin, or worse, simply drop them on the floor.

Another classic example of this just happened tonight at the restaurant where a portly middle aged gentleman knocked his glass off the table shattering it and spilling water everywhere but made no attempt to help out or even acknowledge the fact, he was more concerned about getting another glass of water. Even as the water and glass sat on the floor the waiters continued as if nothing had happened. Eventually a small boy came along with a dustpan and brush and cleaned up the mess – the gentleman in question didn’t even apologise or thank the person for cleaning it up.

I think it’s this “I’m too good to clean up any mess” attitude that they take with them when they go out of the house, to them dropping their litter and trash is as normal as breathing, they’ve always done it, everyone else does it, so what’s the problem? As I said, there just isn’t any thought about how it might affect others or the environment, as long as the used packaging is no longer in your life, who cares what happens to it.

This uncivilized and thoughtless attitude is carried over to the incredible beauty spots all over India. Despite a million signs and rubbish bins, Indians continue to drop their litter as if they are too good or too worthy to be carrying rubbish and somehow it’s the responsibility of the poor and low caste to clean it all up for them.

Now, I’m writing this blog post in Ooty, one of the most beautiful places in all of Tamil Nadu with breath taking scenery everywhere you look, and yet despite the awe inspiring views around me, I found that I was becoming increasingly annoyed with the middle class Indian for the complete and utter disrespect they have for their country, other people and ultimately, themselves.

What should have been an entry of stunning scenery instead turned in to a rant about disrespectful Indians with no civic sense whatsoever. It’s not even as if they can claim there is no where to put their rubbish as there are bins literally everywhere.

I’ve included photos in the hope that it shames at least some people to think twice before throwing the empty water bottle, cigarette packet, tissue, crisp packet or coke can out the car window when they are finished with it.

Now, cue angry responses from Indians who claim they don’t drop any litter at all!

To some extent this is very true, but if I noted the exceptions to my generalizations they’d be longer than the blog post itself and then it would be, well, frankly boring. Even more boring infact.

However, I thought I’d talk some more about these generalizations, and then add a few more micro-generalizations in to the mix to annoy my Indian friends even more

The first generalization that I make is that I often allude to the fact that I’m talking about all of India, when infact what I may have observed or seen was just in Chennai, a city in the state of Tamil Nadu. To put this in perspective, imagine if I said everyone in Europe eats big sausages called frankfurters because I went to Munich and saw people eating them there. Get the picture?

The second generalization that I make is that I assume that what happens in the cities is the same as what happens in the rural countryside. Again, to give this some perspective, imagine if I said all teenagers in England wear their trousers below their arse and have big hoodie tops because I’d been to Brixton in London and seen this.

India should probably be called the United States of India because each state has its own language, culture and customs. They even have state laws, so some states are dry (like Gujurat) while others are fairly liberal with alcohol laws (like Goa). I’ve said it before and no doubt I’ll say it again, but you have to imagine Europe being one country and then you can understand how varied the India is and how difficult it must be to manage.

What’s more is that North India is different to South India. South India is generally (there goes those generalizations again!) considered to be more conservative than the North, so anytime I mention something being ridiculously conservative or prudish, it may not apply to North India.

Similarly the metros (that’s major cities to you and I) are a much different kettle of fish to the rural areas. It’s fairly safe to say that the metro cities are less conservative and traditional than the rural counter parts. Infact, someone told me that marriage within the family almost never happens within the city now awesome progress!

So when reading my blog and I use the stock phrase “in India”, consider the fact that I might be talking about something I saw down a side street in a slummy part of Chennai

As one of my friends said: Everything you’ve heard or read about India is true. But then, the opposite is also true.

Marina beach is the place to go, it’s like Blackpool but not as bad. Families play with their kids, newly weds and secret couples sit slightly closer to one another trying to look nonchalant (but no touching!) and groups of lads do whatever it is young men do and talk about in India. Talk about cricket I guess. Amazingly you’ll also find small groups of young lady’s on the beach – quite what they are doing out of their hostels and on their own I don’t know! :p

When I went to the beach this weekend I did notice a large mixed group of young twenty somethings – presumably MBA students – sitting in a circle and chatting away to one another, however, true to the norms of the society in this part of the country, dignity was maintained by having all the girls on one half of the circle and all the guys on the other.

The beach is like India everywhere, the rich rub shoulders with the poor. If you sit or remain stationary for more than a few minutes, hawkers converge on you like the plague, peddling everything from food of a dubious quality to palm reading and even parakeets that can foretell your future by selecting cards from a pile. You’ll even get the horribly disformed beggars trying to touch you and ask you for money and as a foreigner you are definitely seen as a walking ATM!

Oh yes, and as a foreigner if the hawkers don’t get to you first then it’s because some locals have come over to speak to you. Some of my friends can find this quite tiring but I personally love the attention and curious nature of the people here! However, the questions are always the same…

• “You are from?”
• “How you like India?”
• “You like our food?”
• “How you find our climate?”
• “This is your wife?” (pointing to my friend)
• “You have been in India how long?”

Then when they learn that you’ve been living and working in India for the last two years the focus of the questions change…

• “You have a smart salary?”
• “How much you earn?”

And then, after chatting for you for 5 minutes, during which time you grow more conscious of the fact that you have not asked them a single question they ask for “your good name” and ask if they can exchange contact details with you – as a result my phoneboook is stuffed full of numbers for young and middle aged Indian men who I’ve met for all of 5 minutes, answered the same questions and never spoken to again in my life…if only it was this easy to get womens numbers!

Back to the beach.

While the Indian middle classes are still learning about recreation, downtime and life beyond the office / shop / factory, the deep rooted traditional values of the south remain intact. Women do venture in to the sea but this being India they keep themselves covered from head to toe – yep, they go in to the sea fully dressed, it’s quite bizarre!

Unfortunately, from a personal point of view, no where sells buckets and spades for creating massive sand castles, so one of my few talents is completely wasted on the beaches of Chennai

Yes, it was an uncharacteristically deep and loaded question for someone of my shallow nature. But it was after several bottles of super-strength (not below 6%) Kingfisher and in these circumstances such musings are often liable to surface from hidden depths.

You see, in India, for most of the lower-middle classes (and particularly in the rural areas, the middle classes) it’s the parents who decide what degree the child should pursue. It doesn’t matter if the child has aspirations of being a nurse, an accountant, a fireman, an electrician, a designer or a retail manager; the parents will tell them what degree to do.

For the most part the parents will choose an Engineering based degree because this gives them a greater chance of earning more money. One of the most popular courses is called Bachelor of Computer Applications (BCA), which is basically a programming degree because until recently, there has been a strong demand for programmers as the IT outsourcing boom continued.

Parents will put their children on these courses (and in cases where the students can choose, they will put themselves on the course) because IT pays so well compared to all other industries and is also accessible to the less wealthy – unlike a career in banking, law or medicine which is still the preserve of the wealthy kids who have had a very good private education.

It doesn’t matter if the student is particularly interested in IT, programming or computers. It doesn’t matter if they don’t have any aptitude towards the subject. All that matters is that it can potentially give a high paying job. Interests and ultimately job satisfaction considered optional, or maybe even a bonus.

Actually, a job as a career advisor in India is probably the easiest job in the world. “Programmer. Next!” “Call centre. Next!” “Programmer. Next!” “Call centre. Next!”. I might make enquiries!

To further their chances of employment based on academics, the vast majority of students will do two degrees, usually 3 years of Bachelors of Computer Applications and then another 1 year to do their Masters of Computing Applications.

So now we have the case where a company takes on trainee programmers, fresh out of college and holding high academic marks with their multiple degrees, yet because they have no passion or enthusiasm for the subject they are hopeless as a software developer. I’ve seen a number of freshers who’ve been so spectacularly bad you wonder how on Earth they got through university (or even managed to get dressed in the morning).

(On a separate note, I would love to know how job worthy kids in England and America are when they come out of university. From a business point of view, you are lucky if your average freshers here are merely hopeless).

The tragic part of this is that often families will take out large loans to send their kids through university, doing courses the child has no interest in but in the hope (and sometimes expectation) that they will get a well paid job based on the degree. When this doesn’t work out and the developer has no aptitude towards software development, sometimes through no fault of their own, they have basically wasted 4 years of their life and the family may have put themselves in to huge amounts of debt.

In the company I work for, if a developer fails to make the grade we try and accomodate them by training them to become a software tester, but you can’t force someone to be good at something if they’ve got no passion or interest. In our most recent programming recruitment drive of 15 freshers, who were highly qualified on paper, after 5 months only one remains as a software tester. We had to let the others go because they failed to make the grade.

Often I will interview an SEO analyst or a designer and when I ask them why they are doing this as a career the reply is “I wasn’t good enough to be a developer”. I know of people who might have three degrees in computing but since their aptitude is zero they are employed to press CTRL-C / CTRL-V (that’s shorthand for copying and pasting for you non-nerds out there!) all day. As a ‘career’. I’m certain they have great talents, but it’s not in IT and it probably wouldn’t pay them as much.

I do think that India might be shooting itself in the foot for the future development of the country. Too many students are following computer and programming related degrees and will fail to make the grade in the business world. Their skills and talents lie in other areas – area’s which India will undoubtedly need over the coming decades, but right here, right now, software development pays many, many more times than anything else (a Policeman with six years of service would earn less than a trainee programmer fresh out of college), and I think that’s going to be a problem in the long run.

Essentially I believe that the IT industry is sucking India dry because it’s not producing a wide enough variety of talented students in different fields, it’s producing millions of mediocre programmers.

Taking another example to illustrate this, I’m desperately looking for a content writer who has English as good as mine (and I can think of a couple of Indians that will point out that my English is terrible so it shouldn’t be too difficult!). Since most universities teach in English and English is a second or even first language for most people you’d have thought this would be quite easy but even if a student had an aptitude for the English language, they’d have gone to study programming because English as a skill isn’t seen as being as ‘valuable’ as programming, so due to the laws of supply and demand, I will pay a good content writer more money than a programmer because they are a rarity and hence more valuable!

So this takes me back to my original question and the blog title. Who cares what your dreams are in India, become a programmer and earn more money. Or that’s the plan for now anyway.

Christmas was the first time I’d spent it away from my family. Every year since the age of 18 I’d come back to my parents hometown for the Christmas and New Year period, but after spending two months back in England I was itching to get back to India – which may come as something of a surprise for some people!

Christmas in India can be summed up in a word: Understated

The weather is warm, it doesn’t feel Christmasy, there’s no cheesy tunes on the radio or being played in the shops (which could be viewed as a good thing depending on how you feel about Christmas songs!), there are no Christmas trees, no exchanging Christmas cards and no decorations.

Since India is predominantly a Hindu and Muslim country, I’m surprised that they have a national public holiday for Christmas as so few people actually celebrate it. Maybe they are just more enlightened though because they have public holidays for all the major religions here, or, as my friend just pointed out 11% of the population is Christian and 11% of 1.2bn is a massive number.

So, I worked on the 24th and it was like any other day and then for the first time in many many years woke up on Christmas day without a hangover, but it definitely felt just like any other day.

In an effort to make it slightly more special, I had booked a table at a fancy 5 star hotel restaurant. Rs 1,500 (about £18) per person for all you can eat and drink (including wine and beer) buffet. They laid on all the usual Christmas fair, even pigs in blankets, which were yum! They had turkey, roast potatoes, mince pies, everything infact, except for Christmas pudding. There was an entire BBQ selection outside, loads of cheeses (top tip: edam cheese is horrible) and because Indians are very serious about their desserts (and getting diabetes), several tables worth of cakes, ice cream and other sweets (no ‘profit roles‘ this time though!).

Apparently a lot of the 5 stars in Chennai do this kind of thing on Sundays for lunch, all you can eat and drink for around Rs 1,000, so going to have to check that out!

Once our lunch was finished, I came home, decided that this was a fake Christmas and did my laundry

New Year was another understated affair, there’s not really the going out and celebrating culture that we have in the West and the few bars that there are in Chennai were charging scandalous cover charges just to enter, so that was ruled out. Anyway, turned out my friends either had other plans or couldn’t be bothered doing anything, so I opened a bottle of Extra Strength Kingfisher beer (”alcohol strength not below 6%”), watched James Bond, and forgot about midnight

Last year I made some resolutions, did I stick to them? What do you think. My Tamil vocab has expanded to around 20 words and phrases and I earned a nice amount from my websites.

All in all, 2009 was pretty damn good and better than 2008. Money, holidays and a great time back in England. Even the stressful visa troubles doesn’t seem so bad when I look back on it. I think 2010 will be even better

Do I have any resolutions for this year? Well, kinda, but they are more like goals and things I want to achieve than resolutions, so here we go…

1. Save up and buy a car (sorry, mum, I need to get a car and drive in India, but if I die, you’ll get £15,000 from my life insurance!)
2. Lose some weight…again. I did well last year until I went back to England and put it all back on again. Bah. Stupid western lifestyles
3. Go and see a bit more of India – some people dream of visiting India, I can visit the Taj Mahal in a weekend
4. Bump my online earnings up to $1,500 a month. Currently I’m making between $500 and $800 a month, I want to double that at least
5. Give more money to charity – I’ve discovered an altruistic side of me in 2009, but I also think the population of India should be doing more to help their fellow people
6. Take a holiday to Thailand or Singapore

I think that’s all for now, I’ll let you know in 2011 how it goes!

It first really came to my attention when I took low cost airlines around India (which, if you were to compare them to the no-frills crap we have in England is like a 5 star luxury travel experience). India is quite renowned as a nation of people who don’t follow the rules. If you tried to follow the rules, you’d never get anything done. However, it becomes particularly apparent on a low cost airline.

So yes, I thought it was specific to India, people’s behaviour on planes, but after taking some crap no-frills airlines while back in England, I’ve been forced to reconsider this opinion.

Mobile Phones

This is my biggest annoyance. Everyone knows that they ask you to turn your phone off when you are on the plane, yet people insist on walking on to the plane on the phone, sending text messages, shooting off emails on their blackberry etc.

On the flight back to Chennai the guy next to me was sending messages all through the announcement about turning off your phone, it was done in English, Hindi and Tamil so he had no excuse other than being a knuckleheaded buffoon.

I understand that 99% of the time, use of your mobile phone has no bearing on the performance of the plane, but I have read stories whereby the pilot has been unable to communicate with the tower because of the buzzing interference of a mobile phone. Maybe I’ll get my pilot friend to comment further on this matter.

Anyway, the point is, I’m sure if everyone used their phone, there could well be some problems, you are not special, particularly if you are sitting in cattle class with me, so don’t be an ejit and use your phone.

But it gets worse, the moment the plane touches down, people nowadays seem to be so addicted to their mobiles to which one can probably draw comparisons with smokers and the urge to have a cigarette, because the plane is still on the runway and they pull out their mobile to check for messages! No one loves you anyway, so save it till you get in to the terminal. Oh and if you do get a message, don’t kid yourself, it’s only the local network welcoming you to the country.

Seat Recliners

Oh, this annoys me nearly as much as mobile phones do. The people who make use of the seat recliners are the sort who have no consideration and nothing but contempt for another human being. You can pick out the self centred bastards of the world by those that choose to use the recliner, thus inconveniencing the person behind you who suddenly has an LCD TV shoved in to their face and even less room to move around in.

But what gets me more is that on every single bloody flight, the attendants ask you to put your seat in the upright position. So what’s the first thing these inconsiderate morons do when they board the plane? Recline their seat, I mean, what in God’s green Earth are they thinking? Anyone who’s been on a flight knows the seat has to be upright for take off, why tell everyone you’re an ignorant waste of space right from the start?

Again, I’ve been on a plane which is still on the ground and a cabin crew have asked someone to put their seat forward and not a few minutes later, they recline it again. What makes them think they are more special than someone else, other than winning the most inconsiderate award.

In my somewhat lopsided view, when I looked around the plane virtually everyone had their seats fully reclined, those that didn’t were mostly westerners. When I challenged an Indian friend on this, they replied that they recline their seat because they can, it hadn’t even occurred to them that it could possibly inconvenience the person behind them – something (not considering others) which I think is pervasive throughout Indian society, but that’s a blog post for another day!

So next time you are on a flight, don’t be an arsehole, leave your seat upright. If you want to sleep, stop being a cheapskate and upgrade to a class that lets you stretch out fully, don’t inflict your pig headedness on others just because you are too tight to pay for a better seat.

Seatbelts

Personal safety mean anything to anyone? Then why do the cabin crew have to come around and ask you to put your seatbelt on before take off?!

There must be some kind of psychological problem with some people, they have no fear of death but an irrational fear of being restrained or something because they don’t like wearing that seatbelt!

It’s like, as soon as the plane touches down, you hear the click of people removing their seatbelt and almost letting out a sigh of relief, as if they can finally breathe now the restraining belt can be removed.

And if that’s not enough, on Indian flights, people are actually standing up before the plane has left the runway – leaving the cabin crew to beg and plead with people to sit back down!

Safety Notice

Yes, I know that by now we all know where the doors are located on a plane and that the life jacket is located under the seat and in the event of an emergency we’ll all scream, panic and possibly do something involuntary but even so, keep quiet during the safety instructions!

This was a huge problem on the European flights, the safety notice began and people carried on talking, raising their voices to be heard over the PA system! Eventually the cabin crew had to ask everyone to be silent and started all over again. I’ve noticed on the internal Indian flights the passengers do give the cabin crew their full attention, although I feel this may have more to do with the fact that they are slim and very pretty rather than male and gay like in England!

I mean come on, would it actually kill you to be quiet for a few minutes while the cabin crew give some instructions which may save your life?

Toilets!

Bloody hell this annoys me. Why does it take some people 10 minutes to go to the toilet on a plane?! Especially when they can see a queue of people outside.

I think airlines should start charging for use of the toilet, your first 2 minutes is free, after that it is a £1 / $1 per minute. No one should be taking more than 5 minutes anyway! Not unless they are in the process of joining a certain exclusive club, and even then, 5 minutes?

If you have an aisle seat, don’t complain when people get up!

In the day and age where you get to select your seat before you board, or in the case of the low-but-hidden-charges cost airlines a free for all once you get on the plane, if you choose an aisle seat, don’t complain when someone gets up to go to the toilet or has to wake you to get out!

On the way back to India, I saw one middle aged totally ignorant gentleman refuse to move to allow a lady (who was about 80) get out – the retarded man made her climb over and had the audacity to look put out by this!

The guy wasn’t the smallest and there was another bulky guy sitting next to him who also tried to get out, the comedy of seeing two fat guys trying to squeeze past each other, one stubbornly refusing to get up and the other trying to get through, it just made him look utterly ridiculous, I almost felt like saying to him, “what the hell, move you fool!”

So I don’t know what it is about air travel that makes people lose all sense of etiquette and consideration for others, maybe the irrational fear of flying overrides all other emotions and actions of people and turns them in to little balls of selfishness with not a thought for their fellow passenger.

What annoys you about air travel?!