It is my strong opinion that talent often goes unrecognized by the majority. I think the reason is that even to detect talent, you need a bit of it in the first place. Not a lot, but enough to understand the speciality of that talent. On the other hand, mediocrity recognizes and understands nothing beyond itself.

You see, I believe that each of us is born with something that we can do better than others. Sometimes, it takes a long time, hard work and painful effort even for the individual concerned to recognize and nourish it. For a few people, their special talent comes so naturally to them that they end up not valuing it enough. Rarely do you see child prodigies. In such cases, the whole world has no choice but to sit up and take notice.

I think the best organizations in the world are the ones which detect talent early and discipline it quickly. Microsoft of the early days is a prime example in the software world. The ability of Bill Gates and co. to pick up talent and mould it made them what they are today. But sadly, most software companies today lack this instinct. That is what comes out of cutting corners in HR management.

Like all areas of specialization, I think Human Resource management is a key discipline in any business. But if you check out the HR department of most software companies today, all you can see is a bunch of incompetent, inexperienced staff who sit around imagining that HR is just about recruitment, hiring, firing and paying salaries. It's not. HR goes far deeper than the day-to-day activities of man-management.

The main reason why there is a high rate of attrition in the software industry is the HR staff of organizations. Not only do they neglect talent, they actively discourage it because they cannot see beyond their own limitations. And even if they do, they are too insecure to give it its due reward.

A prime example of talent gone unnoticed is my brother who is an extremely talented OS programmer. Most companies he applied to rejected him because he did not have so-called "experience" in a job they consider as constituting valid experience. But today, he earns far more doing what he enjoys and does best than even top programmers do in the Indian software industry. It was the inability of these software companies to notice his talent that helped him find his true potential. If he had, by any chance, been recruited by any of the Indian software firms, I'm sure he would be wasting his potential, sitting in an office and churning out code that any trained monkey can churn out.

I just feel that the whole concept of PC is flawed because that it is extremely selective in application and only to certain issues or certain groups of people who are, for the lack of a better term, more powerfully offended by the usage of certain terms than others.

Take the example of the recent race row in India's Cricket tour to Australia. Harbhajan Singh was accused of calling Andrew Symonds a "monkey", which is supposedly a racist taunt (I wasn't even aware of this before the issue arose). Now how do you decide whether "monkey" is more offensive than say "bastard" which is a deadly insult in India where we hold family traditions sacred? Or how do we, as Indians, explain that "monkey" is a term of endearment used commonly to describe a naughty child and with no offensive intent? Yet, the other side hardly bothers to understand the cultural differences and prefers to wallow in indignant self-righteousness.

Another example of meaningless political correctness is using the term actor used in both masculine and feminine contexts. That's just a ridiculous practice adopted by the media. The funny thing about it is that even the same newspaper doesn't adopt this usage consistency and columnists frequently revert to the feminine form "actress."

Even though it's simply not in my nature to use crass or vulgar language, I feel that if every group of politically sensitive people start lobbying successfully to ban specific words or phrases, very soon dictionaries will shrink to half their size. And of course, Political Correctness will remain an exclusive weapon of the group with the largest voting power because they can and will impose their version on the others.

Let me just say I'll accept Political Correctness the day when you accept my list of offensive words/phrases/language usage in the same way that you want me to accept yours...

I've never been a big fan of Orkut-style social networking websites where you create user profiles, add friends and exchange messages. Somehow, I've not got into them. These social network sites, in spite of being so feature-rich and user-friendly are nothing more than glorified online contact lists. Yes, you collect a whole bunch of "friends", but what does that really achieve? A simple e-mail address book is a much better social network tool and much less clunky. After my initial burst with social networks, I've not found anything to draw me back to them. I hardly log into Orkut these days. Even the excitement of discovering my old school mates through such channels has died down. I feel that those sites are nothing more than self-centred networks. Your main focus is your own profile. And everything else centres around you. To me, at least, these self-centred networks don't have a great deal of attraction. My blog does a better job in that case.

Oh, I am aware that you can build discussion forums and communities around these social networking sites, but discussion communities are not unique to social networking. Discussion groups and online forums have existed in a far simpler form long before the whole "Web 2.0" phenomenon came into existence.

And then there are the link submission-style (social bookmarking) sites like Digg and StumbleUpon. Once again, I'm not a big user of those. Yes, they do help you get a link back but most of these links are worthless from an SEO point of view (unless your article gets to the front-page somehow). It's true that you might get a lot of traffic for a couple of days from such sites. But then again, it does nothing to promote real social interaction. Additionally you are bound by the likes and dislikes of those communities. I generally find that the communities who use social bookmarking are extremely unreceptive to topics other than technology (and to an extent politics). Thus they are useful to you only if you follow their trends and write about their kind of topics. Besides most of the visitors who come to read your website after clicking on such sites never return. Finally, to the best of my knowledge (and from what I've learned from others), the traffic from social bookmarking sites never generate much advertising revenue anyway. It's merely the internet equivalent of 15 minutes of fame.

I know a lot of you will disagree with this. In fact, I have no doubt that most people will have made better use of social networking and social bookmarking tools than I have and see them as very valuable online resources, but then this article is about how I see them. It seems to me that the whole social-networking thing is overhyped. I always follow my own path in this - most of my friends online are people who've been interacting with me regularly by e-mail for years and those who I've come to know over a period of time. I know I'm old fashioned

We were dining out last evening at one of my favourite restaurants and it struck me that it was the kind of restaurants we usually frequent as a family. I don't know whether they can be described as anything other than "middle class family restaurants" and I think certain aspects are unique to India and particularly South India.

To explain better, I have to mention that there are several kinds of restaurants to suit every budget and every taste where I live. At the lowest end you have the roadside eateries which usually attract large crowds of people all through the day and particularly lower income groups and working men looking for a quick bite to still the pangs of hunger. They vary a lot but are generally characterized by a lack of ambience and a beehive-like activity at most times of the day which means that you generally share tables with total strangers almost at any time you eat at these places. Service is usually lightning quick and you focus most of your attention on eating the food placed before you and leaving to make room for the next customer.

At the highest end of course you have the fancy, high class restaurants which are usually attached to Five Star hotels. Most of them charge the moon, are generally multi-cuisine, attract a select clientele including foriegners and usually serve continental food and alcoholic beverages. Even breathing the air of such restaurants feels expensive.

In between you have everything from speciality restaurants to multi-cuisine restaurants, ethnic restaurants to fast-food joints of every description. But I don't think the kind of eating place I like fits into any of the above categories.

The middle class family restaurants I am talking about are usually stand-alone (not attached to any hotel), generally do not specialize in any particular kind of cuisine, but usually avoid non-vegetarian food and alcoholic drinks. There is a fairly wide range of food available at reasonable prices in these places and are generally not too crowded so you get tables without having to make advance reservations. You get a familiar, comforting choice of food unlike speciality cuisine or ethnic restaurants where even reading the menu can be a challenge. Then again, unlike roadside eateries, they do have a quiet ambience without being opulent and the hygiene usually stands up to close scrutiny. The service is ponderously efficient without being spectacular and you usually get good value for money as far as quality of food is concerned. They are not too noisy because they don't attract the young college-going set (who usually haunt the glitzier fast food joints and shopping malls). The best part is that you can walk into these places without feeling self-conscious about your clothes or general appearance. There is no air of high-class snobbery around these places and the people who come to eat in these kinds of restaurants are typically quiet, shy and retiring middle-class folk. They are perfect for a quiet Saturday or Sunday night dinner for a family looking for a budget treat. I like eating occasionally in five-star luxury no doubt, but we always come back to this type of place because it suits us in every possible way.

Indeed, such restaurants have been the mainstay of middle class India for a long time, but I get the feeling that the mushrooming of hep and modern fast-food joints and rising income levels have led a section of the middle class to abandon these places. People who can afford it usually walk into the higher range and more glamourous restaurants or prefer speciality restaurants. Younger folk tend to go to the fast-food joints or pizzerias for a quick bite. Greater global awareness has also led to an increase in the number of speciality and authentic ethnic restaurants. And of course, roadside eateries continue to do brisk every-day business in spite of everything because of their low prices and quick service. So these middle-of-the-road options are getting crunched on all sides by increasing competition. Already I've seen a few of these places, which were famous institutions in the 80s and early 90s gradually go downhill and fade into obscurity.

Are such eat-outs a dying breed? I certainly hope not.

Private Sector banking in India has a long way to go. At least that is my conclusion after my experiences with the customer care department of a popular private sector bank in India. Having struggled to add my debit card to my PayPal account for nearly a year (after which I gave up on the issue for a while), I recently tried to resolve this issue once again with the bank, but my frustrating quest to make the customer service department of this bank understand what PayPal is and what an online payment gateway means leads me to believe that the situation hasn't changed in a while now.

The problem with Public Sector banks

This does not mean that Public Sector banks in India are particularly good at customer service either. But with Public Sector banks, the problem is entirely different. The employees of PSUs generally belong to an older generation who were in the business long before banking became computerized, automated and centralized. Most employees at government banks at least know the basics of banking and can answer most simple questions (provided they are in the right mood). Their problem is one of lethargy, attitude, bureaucratic red tape, antiquated procedures and a lack of customer orientation. Government banks don't exactly cater to customers in double quick time but they usually get the job done in reasonable time. They are also a lot more approachable because government banks don't delegate customer service to a bunch of call-centers and telephone operators. It is possible to meet the local branch manager of any government bank provided your business is important enough. True, everything takes a while to get done but it does get done in the end and in recent times, government banks have shown a tendency to tighten up on the customer support front. They have a long way to get there, but at least they're modernizing now.

The biggest advantage of Public Sector banks is that they don't *have* to make profits. They don't have to look at cost-cutting. They also have the infrastructure and a large employee base which gives them a natural advantage in terms of geographic spread and coverage. They are also the mainstay of rural India. They will continue remaining the stronghold of banking in India because I don't forsee private banks making any headway in that direction.

And why private banking will continue to suck

Private banks in India have a completely different problem. Thanks to liberalization and globalization, they have tough competition on both fronts: private and public sector banking. They have to make profits and indulge in cost-cutting to remain in business. They also have to charge higher interest rates for loans than public sector bank for the same reason.

Customer support in private banks is usually computerized and modernized. But this has also taken away the most important factor in banking: personal contact and personalized service. True, many private banks do tend to make a lot of noise about "personalized" banking, but that's all a bunch of baloney. Their customer service, in theory, is supposed to provide excellent service, but in reality it is the opposite. Why?

The reason is that private banks usually have to employ a large workforce to keep up with the increasing needs of customers and in the process, they cut corners in quality. The bank support staff in private banks are usually young graduates who have very little experience in practical banking. They are also great at punching numbers into computers and generating reports, but are extremely poor in analyzing and understanding the core concepts of finance and technology. They cannot do a thing without the supporting software and hence are reduced to mere computer and telephone operators. I am willing to bet that a fairly computer-literate customer can actually use the software better than these ill-trained customer support personnel. While they are trained in being prompt to reply to queries, their promptness is akin to a robot, not a human being. They have very little ability to think about things that go beyond what can be generated out of a computer report. No doubt they have sophisticated technology at hand, but what can be achieved if the human being behind the computer cannot think?

And because of the recent trend of outsourcing support, private banks are also a lot less approachable. It's hard to meet somebody who's actually in a responsible or senior position in person. Their support systems are fairly well-organized, but the actual process of getting things done can be a frustrating, especially if the issue involves something different from their usual routine (like the example of using my Debit card online). Surprisingly I found that these younger employees also have very little idea of new technologies like internet banking, e-commerce and online payment gateways. The last straw was when the telephone banking staff had no clue about what PayPal was and how it was related to eBay. I have been referred to different kinds of support staff (from direct face-to-face to telephone support to internet banking support) but so far nobody has been able to answer my simple question: "Why does the bank keep rejecting my Debit card?" In fact, they had no idea what the bank policy was on online card usage. So much for support!

Conclusion

My feeling is that the talk of the private sector banks being competitive is rubbish. They cannot be competitive because they have to hire more and more staff in order to cater to customers, but at the same time they cannot afford to pay large salaries to attract really qualified personnel. From what I can see now, I don't expect this scenario to change in the forseeable future.