Walk Alone

How many of us have been asked about our family background? In an interview for a job, or maybe for a scholarship. Or perhaps by a new acquaintance. How innocent was that query? Surely, the person was attempting to get a measure of our background or our character?

Are you sure that was the only thing the interviewer was doing?

Do read the comments, even if comments on rediff and indiatimes test our sanity and patience a lot. Most of the respondents think the researchers are implying that Indian companies are engaging in direct caste discrimination. The article implies something far more dangerous - that people are discriminating without knowing it. Their decision making process is influenced by the answers they receive to all the questions, which includes a background check. Why ask for background if you are going to ignore it? Why ask for background if it is irrelevant? Thats because sub-consciously, we are equating backgrounds with castes. And our decisions are being influenced by the background of the applicant.

Caste discrimination is a practice that has had thousands of years for perfection. It has been taken to such a level of perfection that its practice is so subtle, so innocuous that an accuser would be treated as irrationally paranoid. You will have to bore into the very nuances of language, behavior and culture to know it is occuring.

It s a fight that has to be fought on a different level.

What can I say? I’ve been allowed to continue as HoTT - TT is Tech Team, go figure out the rest. I suppose I must bow down and say “Thanks. Thanks.. O Ye wizards from the comp/it/etrx streams for letting a student from Electrical Engineering become HoTT”. In the bargain, nearly half the team is made up of IT wizards because that stream sacrificed a HoTT slot. Phew! No wonder we stay tuned during elections.

The comp/it/etrx (cie for short) people believe the TT belongs to them. Why? Because they use Flash. And maybe some programming and scripting. They use lpt interface programing. They handle lots of PCs and peripherals. And thats all.

To tell you what I feel - THIS SUCKS. Period. In these times, to use those points as a criteria for exclusive ownership over the TT is anachronistic. These people have got an over-inflated opinion of themselves. They forget that they got equal competitors churned out by the thousands from various B.Sc. IT courses, NIIT, Aptech and lots of similar institutes. Frankly, a formal degree in cie has lost its relevance in these times. Rank amatuers can beat these comp/etrx guys at their jobs - such are these fields. As for IT, please show me where these people work. They are simply taking away programming and system admin jobs. I, an amatuer who looks on Linux and related stuff as a hobby, could study 4 books on say, Linux Administration, Apache, MySQL and Perl - and beat a BE Comps/IT student hands-down at server design and admin anytime. (ok don’t sweat - I don’t have the time or inclination). These people can’t appreciate the fact that someone outside their direct discipline can do things as good as them or (again, don’t sweat) better.

Visit Joe’s blog on his site. He has a post on the irrelevance of Comp Science Engineering. Read it.