My love-hate relationship with Hyderabad
I have always been very proud of calling myself a Hyderabadi. May be its just the easy way out to answering questions about my "native place" :-D, but seriously... I love the place. But there have been times when I've felt like I could've done better and I can't help blaming it a bit on how Hyderabad functions. Although majority of the population speaks Telugu, North Indians have been settling here since forever, thanks to a huge Hindi(Urdu) speaking population and now the IT magnet that it has come to be. But to me, its still a wanna-be cosmopolitan.
I'm gonna be fair here and not think about Mumbai or even Chennai for that matter. But its a known fact that Bangalore has progressed much faster even though we started out pretty much at the same level. There is not a lot of difference today between the volume of business generated by IT in both places, neither is there is a difference in world-class education. If Bangalore has IIM, IISC, Hyderabad has ISB, IIIT, NIFT, NALSAR and so on. But there is still a huge difference in the outlook of the people. The native population is a very conservative lot.
A few days back I was having a conversation with a friend from Mumbai. I was telling him how I came about to be an engineer. I was telling him how more than 50% of Hyderabadi engineers came about to be so. If a kid is "bright"(typically in state syllabus this would mean the kid can chant the vedas and his math textbook with the same accuracy), it'll become his family's mission to somehow try and push him into one of the IIT's. For all you know, the kid performed well in his sixth class final exam in the hope that his parents might buy him a new video game. But instead the cable TV gets cut and he finds himself in a dungeon called "IIT Foundation Course". From now on, the entire universe around him makes him believe that he was born to be a geek. That's it, sports/dance/TV/girls/all other not-amounting-to-engineering-skills hobbies out the window. I can go on and on about this but to no avail.
The point I am trying to make here is that the immense potential for creativity in Hyderabad is dying. India Inc. certainly needs a lot more quality engineers to move forward but not at the expense of murdering creativity. I used to be of the opinion that the IT revolution is responsible for this, but no. No matter what stream, today, you cannot runaway from technology. I have learnt that the hard way. It is common nowadays that people from various backgrounds end up coding. But that's ok, the industry demands it and you get paid, so why not? Generally, people from other parts of India have made a more informed choice of career compared to those from Hyderabad. The simple reason being lack of exposure and acceptance. Commerce graduates are often looked down upon in Hyderabad as if its the end of the world. This is not done!
Very specifically, I'd like to see the following changes:
- State syllabus has to change. Just mimicking CBSE/ICSE should do.
- Career counseling should be made a part of school curriculum. Typically kids who want an off-beat career, start looking at options after 12th. But its already late.
- Internships/Industry training should be made compulsory in engineering!
These problems you might think are generic and the whole of India suffers from it. But no, in Hyderabad, it is even more so. I am very proud of the fact that Notion Ink chose Hyderabad to develop their famed Adam. I hope colleges in Hyderabad will draw inspiration from this and start encouraging real engineering projects, industry alliances and entrepreneurial incubation centers.
Aakash Mathur posted on February 23, 2010 at 9:52 PM
Completely agree!... could not have agreed more...
Unknown posted on February 23, 2010 at 10:29 PM
Agree with you on the creativity front, its a sad fact that in the south in general there are only two major career options engineering or medical. Be in anything else and you are considered as someone who couldn't make it in the above two. As a result of which people finish 4 years of college and realize wait art is what i really wanted.
Career counselling should be mandatory, find out what interests you at an early age and pursue it. I think as we slowly become more developed we will see that happening. But then again may be thats simply cause I'm an eternal optimist :)
aks posted on February 23, 2010 at 11:25 PM
making informed career choices is probably a long shot and will take time. The real difference between Hyd and rest of the south is the lack of industry interaction! I never knew the importance of an internship or even how to go about getting one while in Hyd but a lot of other colleges across India have compulsory industry training in the last sem, plus there is inherent lack of encouragement for industry funded projects! All this is probably very well done in colleges in Mumbai and even Chennai. And Hi-5 at eternal optimism! :)
Vidya posted on February 24, 2010 at 1:48 PM
Aks,
Welcome to the blogging world :) Good to see you here!
I think it IS unfortunate, and I'm glad you thought to mention Hyderabad. I haven't been back there in a whiile, but even I got caught into the web of compulsory IIT coaching from 7th grade, even if I had no passion or want to become an engineer...
I'm a little thankful that I got out when I did, but I think career counseling is a really good idea. Perhaps parent counseling too ;) just to make them aware of all the options in careers.
aks posted on February 24, 2010 at 2:05 PM
Oh yes! You certainly got out at the right time.. and thanks!
Shanmugam posted on February 25, 2010 at 8:21 AM
Good, you started a blog; better, people read and respond. That is the purpose of a blog - rather a platform. Comments? That should come from those who have gone beyond the 3 R's.
The blogs I enjoy (1) Amitabh (2) Rajdeep Sardesai (3) Shobhaa De.
Bachchan's intricate thinking process is amazing and I doubt whether any one else can reach that height (except some fiction writers). Happy blogging
aks posted on February 25, 2010 at 9:04 AM
Thank You Pappa! :).. I would like to see you start blogging too!
Anonymous posted on February 25, 2010 at 11:47 AM
lol......kaiko re dum karra loogo ko...chal apna kam karle....hyderabad waali aisich hai
edufascin posted on February 25, 2010 at 12:30 PM
All the old memories just flashed by when i started reading your blog.
A good beginning to your personal blog. Keep writing and do not give long intervals between your writings.
Have fun blogging!
aks posted on February 25, 2010 at 1:09 PM
Haha.. Aj just proved my point! :-)
and @edufascin(I'm guessing its Rohit Sehgal).. thx!
Anonymous posted on February 25, 2010 at 3:33 PM
I proved you point #$^&* abbey o ....Im just telling its upto an individual and his/her parents as to what they want their offsprings to spring like....u could have dropped out of this mad race ...u followed the crowd dude and unfortunately most of the crowd in hyd doesnt have the strength to follow their dreams or dont take tht time to even think wht they want..dont blame HYD
aks posted on February 25, 2010 at 4:23 PM
dude.. at the end its always upto an individual.. and i never said I wanted to drop out.. i chose the stream i wanted and even here i did what i wanted.. i definitely blame hyderabad for an inherent lack of awareness among the people. even if people wanna drop out of engg, there are not many financially viable career options you have. that needs to change! and mind you this is not the case in bangalore.. people are a lot more informed about other career options simply because there is more exposure and a broad-minded approach to career building.
Anonymous posted on February 25, 2010 at 5:24 PM
U didnt mean Akshay lol nothing personal man. Hmmmm financially viable options, if financial viablity should be the only criteria then I think Hyderbadis have all along been taking the right and the safest route...engg,job,mba,money or MS in US job. U might not become the richest but u aint gonna go the paupers route. I think the thinking has to change. I think the thinking behind career routes is heavily dependent on money, Hyd's are a conservative and poorer lot when compared to people from bang or mumbai and I think there starts our natural aversions towards offbeat careers. And I think itll slowly change as now u see more people from other fields making better money and stuff. .....yeah and when it comes to engg yep industry-college interaction needs to improve and for that you need a lot of industrial setups to come up with the number of students hyd produces. So what do you think has to happen ?
aks posted on February 25, 2010 at 6:36 PM
I already pointed out what needs to happen in the blog. Hyderabadi's are a poorer lot than bangalorians is not true. Per capita in both cities is almost the same. The difference is only in attitude. Like you pointed out, we all take the safest route... under almost the same economic conditions as the rest of India. Why? Because our early education failed to show us the other side. Hence I said the SSC syllabus needs to change for one. Secondly, for more industry interaction of colleges, we don't need to set up more industries. We have enough, but the college curriculum should make internships/industry training compulsory in the last semester. How difficult is that? I know for a fact that Mumbai University has industry training compulsory in the last sem.. so why cant Osmania and JNTU follow the same?
Apoorva posted on February 26, 2010 at 10:38 AM
Very true..you have an engg college in every street!!
Unknown posted on March 4, 2010 at 8:26 AM
for one, sorry for the delay in posting a comment. nice blog... well written...
the topic you hv chosen is a sore point with me so the less said abt tht the better.
it is true tht ultimately it is the individuals choise, but then a person can make an informed choice only when all options are visible. hyd tends to provide blinkers to most student and the only things they can see (if they are 80+% students tht is) are engg and medicine. kinda makes it seem like you should do poorly in your exams to actually explore your choices.
if career counselling is made mandatory, and if the mindset of the majority of the ppl changes then education in hyd can be a force to reckon with since the infrastructure is already in place. even if half the engg colleges in AP diversify to hv more streams then hyd will become a dream destination for education.
thegeekwhowasnt posted on March 7, 2010 at 3:11 AM
Hey Akshay....nice to see you too man..happy blogging :)
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