call centre lingo

I was having my usual 6PM coffee + cigarette routine outside my office complex, which incidentally has various IT-related businesses like call centres, medical transcription
centres etc apart from software development companies.

6PM Indian time would be early morning in most parts of the US (except maybe the West
coast) and the US of A is slowly waking up. Europe has already been up for sometime now.
What this means for the Indian call centre industry is that, there are calls to attend and customers to face (over the phone that is).

You can see the cabs hired by call centre companies rushing past as they drop employees
at work. Some of them gather for a quick cigarette before they get in for the night shift.

I did not really intend to overhear their conversation. But they were so close and also so
loud that there was no way I could have avoided hearing it, even if I wanted to. Well, it
was about nothing serious. Just about how they had spent their weekend.

The usual banter about the discos / pubs visited, the hot chicks etc. What did strike me
was that for every two words they uttered, they used either the word "fu.." or some
variation of it. I mean, I can understand it if someone uses that word once in every
sentence, which itself is not a rational use of the word. But, here these guys were like
using it more like punctuation.

Have noticed this phenomenon earlier too and always with call centre guys. I am not in
any way implying that all call-centre guys talk like that. But the ones that do, usually
seem to be from that domain. I was wondering how this speech phenomenon came about.

Do they think its cool ? If so, it is definitely not. It actually sounds crude. Do they think Americans talk like that ? None that I ever met during my trips abroad. It is strange to
see our current Indian generation think of such things as fads.

Well, why blame them when most of us are aping the Western way of life in some way
or the other - food, drinks, materialism, spending, sexual habits, whatever ? While the
westerners having understood the uselessness of their habits are moving towards the
good facets of our culture.

Go ahead and multiply.

The title of this post can be found at more than one place in The Bible. Over the years,
this exhortation has lost its relevance because today we are in a different age and the
above maxim can prove suicidal, if followed.

The Earth can support only so many people and resources being finite, this could have
a huge impact on the planet and the people on it. No wonder, even the Christian leaders
do not ask their following to toe this line as they are aware of the negative fallouts. Even
when they are against contraceptive methods like condoms / pills etc, they do not suggest
unlimited procreation. Instead they suggest methods like abstinence which I know are not
really very helpful.

I personally do not think the Bible is against condoms and believe that condoms are the
best bet to control the burgeoning population and also to control the spread of AIDs.
However, I am digressing from the topic.

This post is a reply to the call by Mr.Sudarshan (top RSS leader) to Hindus to go ahead
and have a minimum of 3 kids. Ofcourse he would be happy if they have more.

Reason behind this twisted logic is to overcome what he feels is the high rate of growth of
Muslims, which was made infamous by the 'butcher of Gujarat' by the line "Hum Paanch, hamare pachees", which translates to "We Five, Ours TwentyFive". This refers to a muslim
man & his 4 wives (the max they are allowed) and their kids. Other than illiterate Muslims,
I am not sure how many of them have more than 1 wife. The Muslims I know, do not, in
any case.

As mentioned earlier on this blog, there is no way any of the minority communities (all of
which total up to a mere 15%) can be a threat to the 85% majority. But then logic is useless
to politicians and fundamentalists who find it better to serve up absurdities to the majority public who are illiterate and will swallow whatever they say.

The main obstacle today to India's development is its high population. The reason why
infrastructure fails to keep with the demand, the reason for illiteracy, the reason behind
hunger etc. And here we have a leader exhorting his cadres to go ahead and spawn more.

When will our leaders ever start talking sense ? When will they rise above the petty hatred
and think of the national well being. As far as I can see, not in the near future.

So, what can be done about this situation ? Is there nothing we can do as Indian citizens ?
Yes, there is a lot that can be done. To start with, we could stop talking about change and
instead be instrumental in bringing it about. The following maxim sums it up well,
"Be the change you want to see in the world."

Let us not rely on our so-called leaders to lead the way to a better India. Let us instead
think of contributing our efforts to making this happen.

Jai Hind.