(WEIRD THOUGHTS ALERT: Some of these thoughts may offend you, hurt you or leave you with no reason to follow certain sects… reader discretion advised.)

This all started as a discussion with Archis Gore a friend of mine, we discussing some issues about human beings and how we follow religion and stuff. It got me started with the thought process to think and understand why did all of this come up? What must have been a purpose of such set of rules that we follow today? Rules that lead to the violence that might lead to the elimination of the entire human race?

Lets think about the time when man did not have any of these rules? Did we even have one such time? Probably we did. This all did not come form the blue, at least it does not look like. If we try to reason every rule that exits we can find at least one reason that must have been good enough to put the rule in place at that point in time. So, what was the purpose of this much hyped about species called HUMAN BEINGS or HOMOSPIENS? What did we do then? An answer that comes to mind looking at today’s world is probably reproduce and reproduce and reproduce even more…

I know it is kind of gross to think of our ancestors without brains, knowledge and act like animals. But well I am sure there must have been times like those, when we did not fight each other based on religion or may be then we did not fight at all. I think humans went through a phase on this planet when there was a tranquil and peace and then they started loosing their edge for survival, the sharpness of body and brain. It was at this point to save the human race from extinction and to improve the chances of survival we learned from the beings around us. We learned two most important things to humans, fear and anger. The two contrasting but potentially very basic instincts for survival. Then with these two came the feeling of intimidation. To award the intimidator for the being one he was awarded with some reward, something that he / she wanted. The award must have been the most vaunted thing at time. (Make a guess for yourself…) Now we come to a very interesting phase, the phase of competition amongst humans. If one thinks carefully even today this is the most important aspect of our race that keeps us way ahead of other species (at least to the best of our knowledge). That keeps us competing with each other for superiority, for the reward. The reward changed with time, I guess but aim to keep our species competitive remains still intact.

Now come to think of religion, why did we need to believe in something that is beyond humans? One reason could be we had not yet found the answer to the most mysterious question or death. Then, also to keep the ever growing power of these intimidators in check we had to believe in some super power that was beyond the comprehension of the common people. Now to avoid people claiming the closeness to the almighty and to give an identity to the community to distinguish them from the others outside we needed certain rules to be followed by the members of the community. Basically to bring order to otherwise orderless bunch of competing humans these rules were set. It was an attempt to make the race to the top of intimidators “interesting” and most coveted,  these rules were devised. The groups became jingoistic about their own rules and then started competing with others who followed other rules or did not follow any. As the number grew the stature of the almighty grew and those intimidators who revered them also grew in stature. I think these must have been the basics of our civil society as we see it today.

Now lets mix the above two things staying competitive and then following a set of rules. What we see is the so called unruly set of humans who have more rules to follow than their own populations. Who live their entire life for the simple purpose of keeping human race competitive by “improving their skills”, reproducing, teaching their off springs the same line of thoughts that they learned from their parents  and following those set of rules that they think will help them ahead of the rest of the creatures on this planet.

We are walking the path that our ancestors laid down for us as per the best of their knowledge at that time. You don’t believe me? Think about it with a cool head. Half the wars in this world are because we wanted to be superior than others, rest are due to the set rules that we follow and want others to agree that they are the best and follow them(again competition) and where are we headed? Towards a war where we will destroy each other because we want to prove to each other that we are the best. Oh! and we forgot it was for the survival of the human race. This surely is a contradiction and as would be in mathematics we would say our assumption was wrong. Can we prove something here? Yes the purpose of of human race as of now seems to be to destroy itself and they are heading very quickly towards it.

This must have been really absurd or totally crap or absolute truth for you… in any case I would like to hear back from you. Share your thoughts…

PS: These are my thoughts and I am solely responsible for them.

I have lived in the US for the past two years and prior to that have worked at various companies all of which were in the software development bussiness, mostly outsourced software development or off shore development as one might call it. Basically the term I prefer for this is cheap labor. Any company, you name it and I can bet the reason for an expanded Indian office catering clients far away, is cheap labor. At nearly 1/10th the original cost and for doing the same work. I know none of this is a news to most of you readers. Then what am I writing about?

It is a question, a question that I have asked people a lot times and answers have been varied. My own answer to this is not very pleasing to many around me. So, today I try to pose it to you all, my readers (in whatever short numbers you are, you are valuable).

It is about the outsourcing and relates the notion of pricing the product to the current market standards. If the demand is bigger than supply then price is up if the opposite then it is low. So, in this context how would you put the equation of outsourcing? Not a brain teaser, I suppose. India and China have large number of human resources, for one they don’t have one thing in scarcity and that is humans. In case of India engineers and scientist. There is a flood of them, thousands and millions graduating every 5 years. They are being added to the pool with similar skill sets, similar aspirations,similar desire to earn big bucks in small time. Now when you have this heavy flow of “Talent” (?) and that too at the 1/10 of the price, WHY WILL SOMEONE PAY THE SAME 10 TIMES HIGH PRICE?? Now come the grand question.

“IS THE JOB REALLY WORTH THE ORIGINAL PRICE WHEN THE SAME JOB CAN BE DONE IN LOWER 1/10th PRICE?”

Will the workers in the US settle for 1/10 of their salary because their job can be done at a much lower price. In fact let me put this with an example, will you buy a “shampoo” (please replace it with any product you like) from a store that employs expensive sales workers for $10 more than the lower price at Walmart or Target for the same brand and product? Whatever is your answer I would like to know.

I have the Indian side of out sourcing too, I will write about it soon. It is an employee’s experience. Till then keep your views on this one coming.

My last post about Irene made some of my friends believe that I have gotten in to the matrimonail advertisement business for myself, I must say it was not entirely that. Those were a set of thoughts fighting in me so gave a way out which to many looked like an advt. for matrimonial site… I would not protest against it, but would surely say, that was not the intention …

Today on my 27th Birthday, I am the last wicket (waiting to fall? …) from the gang of us 4 close friends batting unbeaten and with good steam. But I must admit that the solidity is not all the same as it was few years back. I guess the conspirators for getting me out are gaining the momentum. It will be interesting though to see when exactly I fall as the last batsman in the inning of Bachelor hood and join the band wagon of committed or married men, who in my college group are in majority now… …

It is really surprising that when I left India less than 5 months ago, of the four, one wicket had just fallen, and now I have two more down with in a span of 30 days! Well it is said in cricket if you loose one wicket then the other one might follow soon, and this was an example… So, now it is my turn to keep the flag flying high.