Evolution Of Nations ....

Staying with the current theme of my posts ... and my most recent experiences , or more aptly u can say my recent observations of a society, which has transformed itself from a war ravaged, under developed nation not so long ago .to arguably a developed society today. Now I have used the word 'Arguably' cause the only people who insist that they are still a developing nation are Koreans themselves :) and that has more to do with protecting their Agricultural sector from WTO regulations of free trade ... than what actually is they would like to believe :)

For a person like me ...who gets his dal roti by keeping track of what is happening around the world of telecom , the first country to commercially launch DMB (Digital Media Broadcasting) or in simple terms TV on ur cell phone .... can't be anything but developed ... and to add to that being the home of giants like Samsung ,LG, Hyundai et all further corroborates the claim ... and if I tell u that a Hyundai sonata is used as an 'ordinary taxi' ... the very car which till recently was a status symbol in my homeland India .... I think few there will have doubts regarding South Koreas developed status....

Now this post wasn’t meant to debate whether or not Korea is developed .... but my intention here is dwell a bit more to try and understand .... what did Seoul do in the last 2 - 3 decades to completely transform itself ...me being an ordinary bloke .... and no expert on such subjects can speak based on a laymans observation ...

the first impression that I got after just a couple of days in office was that these chaps (Koreans) .... are the most workaholic race of people I have ever come across .... not that I have interacted with every race in the world ... but this observation is based on my experience of working with Europeans .... and accounts from friends about the Americans .... though I’ve heard Japanese are quite similar in nature ...... but then isn’t Japan also a relatively recent success story ?? ...

so people here in Korea put in real long hours of work ... and by long hours I actually mean long working hours ... unlike a few of us Indians .... including me .... who stay in office for 14 hrs a day .... of which 8 are spent in getting in a mood to work and the rest 6 actually working :) ... now what keeps these chaps going ?? my best guess is a real high dose of nicotine and weekend bouts of booze....I am yet to meet a single Korean male who doesn’t smoke !! ...

and its not just their slogging like dogs that catches your eye ... its the amazing sense of self discipline which for me makes them stand out ... be it using only the Zebra crossings and waiting for the traffic signal to cross a road .... to waiting for a subway in a station .... it’s amazing to see how these ppl queue up on the designated arrows on the platform .... which mark the edges where the train gates will open .... wait patiently till every one gets down and board the subway in a queue ... it’s actually an wonderful scene ... hundreds on mini queues formed on the platform waiting for the train to come .... and then you won’t believe it .... they also have a protocol for using the escalators .... Koreans being the workaholics they are ... more often than not, there will be many people in a hurry who can’t wait for the escalator to go on its own pace .... so what do these ppl do ? ... its an unwritten rule that ppl who don’t intend to walk up/down the escalator will stand only on the right extreme of the escalator ... leaving the left for ppl who want to be on the move .... amazing !! .... every thing looks orderly here .... with processes not only well defined but also followed in the right spirit ....... I can go on and on with similar examples ..... but i guess you got the jist ..

It won’t be true if I say every Korean is the same, there is a sizeable young hep crowd around .... making merry and spending big time apparently what their parents have earned the hard way ..... but again as in most successful and developed societies .... it is just one or two generations that give the entire society a push ...and the coming generations just ride the wave ,already having a well set platform ..... it was the case be it the US or the UK or Europe .... wherein the generations of the late 1700's and thru the1800's brought about the Industrial revolution .... giving those societies a head start which they enjoy till date ....now ppl in Europe don’t stay in office beyond 5 now !!

As they say history repeats itself .... Japan saw a similar period in the 60's to 80's transforming their society ...... and Korea from probably the 80's till date .... for Korea it’s the current generation and the last one which has done the hard work .... and its time for the next to enjoy it!! .... China maybe is on its way ....

Now again ..... the question which led me to write all this is when will we get to these levels .... when will India get its generation that will make its mark ?? .... for many it’s already come .... they say that this current generation has it to take our gr8 nation to greater heights .... but I personally am still skeptical , to transform a society ... the push should come from a majority of our population .... it’s just not possible that a handful of industrialists and techies can do it ....and if this is the case the results can actually be disastrous ...creating an ever widening rift b/w the different classes of people .... What we need in my view is a revolution ... a revolution of knowledge .... of education .... of conscience .....of nationalism ....of self discipline... which penetrates the deepest of roots ..... we need to inculcate these very values which act as catalysts to growth among ourselves ....creating the will to excel among each and every Indian is the need of the hour ... and all this is possible ... primarily thru an infrastructure of effective primary education which reaches the grass roots and inculcates such values from a very early age ... only then we can actually think of crossing the hurdle ....

What stops us from doing this ??? what are the solutions to this problem ?? I still don’t have answers .... maybe with time , experiences , observations , a few answers might unravel themselves .... and as soon as I come to some reasonable understanding .... based on my average intellect levels .... will try to pen them down in this space sometime later ....

Evolving Thoughts ......

Now this has been another looong gap since I had written last .... there have been so many things that have been happening all around me ... life is moving a bit too fast for my liking .... but then if i think of the positives the learning curve for me over the last two months has been a lot steeper than it has been in a very long time .... and this is not only abt learning in the sense of what i hav been upto professionally .... but a lot more in the direction which has .... i believe made me a lot more mature as a person ..... and my active association with Bharat Uday Mission in bangalore over this period has a lot to do with this...

So i will try to start off from where I left last .....The initial euphoria and rhetoric about being part of a revolution and changing the face of the nation (a new world order ??) ...died its natural death as was expected and the realization about the actual ground situation came fast ... the challenges that lie ahead , the hurdles ... internal contradictions ... differences in opinion ...ego clashes ... there were ppl who walked out .... and then there were new enthusiastic ppl who walked in ...but what is important is ... whatever the differences in opinion about the path to follow ... the objective and the final destination among all of us is clear ....

Over the last two months I had the opportunity to interact with many people from across the country and abroad under the BM banner .... some interactions were pleasant and some not so pleasant .... but the learning’s from these have been immense .... the intricacies of group dynamics could never have been more apparent ... the realization that what you feel and what you believe will not always be what the team you are working with will agree too ... and more importantly there can be some one who has a better perspective and a point of view ..... I have been working in Teams in the s/w industry for round 3 years now .... but believe me its never the same when you work in a team which is formed, based purely on a common vision with no one in the group having anything personal to gain .... walking out on a difference of opinion in your professional career is not an option .... but in case of a group like BM it is the easiest and there lies the challenge .... to keep yourself motivated and synergize your efforts together even when you have a different view and even when you dont gain anything personally ...... that is the ultimate test of selfless work and the biggest challenge.

Not long ago I strongly believed that the cure of all the ills of our Indian society is simple .... you just need to be ruthless .... maybe a strong willed dictator with the right intentions will do the trick in a matter of 5 - 10 years .... but that was when i was a drawing room analyst of issues .... within the comfortable 4 falls of my house and looking at issues from there ... you just need to scratch the surface and then you will realize the enormity of the issue at hand ..... India being the country is it has its own unique challenges ....the kind of diversity in faith culture, language, social and economic status you find here will be somewhat equivalent to the diversity you find maybe in the entire continent of Europe ... and that is something real difficult to handle and manage efficiently ... any solution should be equally acceptable to every class of citizens of this country and believe me that is not at all easy ...

In the last couple of months I got a chance to spend some time with children of an Orphanage / Hostel in Bangalore though i would have liked to spend a lot more time but things in my professional life had got real hectic off late ... but whatever time i could spend over the weekends was another experience for me .... I was supposed to teach the children basics of Spoken english ... and inspite of me not knowing kanadda at all and the children able to understand my English with great difficulty .... i could see the enthusiasm in them .... you couldnt miss the glitter in their eyes .... for them someone coming down just to meet them ... talk to them meant a lot ...and who better than me to understand what they feel like ....this was the period where the reservation debate was all over the place ....... I have always believed that there should not be any kind of reservation at any level .... but a few days of interaction with these children who didn’t even know what an engineer is and what he does ... i could understand that given the current structure of basic primary education in India .... we need some support for children like these .....but should it be based on caste ??? In the attendance register most of the children didnt have a second name ... if there is anyone who needs reservation then its these kids ... who dont even know what caste they belong to ...

I think will leave this account at this ..... have a lot more to write will try to get my next post soon :)