The take Over

My friend Mr K. [yes the same Mr K from the Rwanda trip] told me that once upon a time to survive in Silicon Valley you needed to know two languages; Java and Telugu. I laughed of and he said he was quite serious and many offshore onsite telcons would take place in Telegu with US customers some times sitting and listening to the design issues and engineering updates. IN the middle of it all there would be discussions of Chiranjeeve’s latest movie’s to hot sizzling scenes of Rambha and of course give my love to my family talk. Considering it is just two day since the resource has come on site he is missing his family like it has been a lifetime.

Software industry boom and the flurry of professionals to the US has many good bad and ugly stories. I heard a lot of it from my friends. Personally I never had the urge to go abroad and neither did my opportunities come in line with projects requiring me to travel to the western world. Bangalore was then the hotspot of all IT activity and every one knew it to be India’s Silicon Valley and the un-ending supply of manpower for cheap onsite labour in software companies. However back home these professional converted their few hundred thousands to a few millions considering the currency conversion factor. Bangalore is a mini Andhra with a minor Kerala and a miniscule Tamil Nadu. I came to Bangalore thinking this is a pot of IT intellect, in fact it is but I was astonished to find that the local language for transaction was Telugu and that there were not even a handful of Kannada sign boards, hoardings or information kiosk, except the KSRTC bus name plates.

So they took over California and Bangalore in one clean sweep. I was not bothered much about the take over, but I felt bad for the poor Kanadigas’ who were chased out of their own courtyard. Classic example of how an industry can chase away the population that does not care much about being a part of it. Come to Mumbai and all hotels, bars and eating houses are owned by Kannadigas but it did not chase away the population from Mumbai. So I kept thinking what was different about the Telugu take over. Or was it that they were only the ones to take over software engineering jobs?Turns out that considered all of south India to be Andra Pradesh :) So it was always their land, who were the Kannadigas then ?