30 Days show about Outsourcing

I was spending the nite as usual before the idiot box scanning channels before leaving it on one channel with no change to the channel after that and I happened to see an interesting show. The 30 days on FX. I dont know if the show felt interesting because it covered Bangalore a city in India or because it covered Outsourcing a burning topic in United States and being in a software profession involves me directly or indirectly or just because the show itself was an interesting concept. The show was about an American who loses job and is sent to India to take up a job spend 30 days with an Indian family and live his life as a professional in India, where his job went.

This opened up various questions in me which were not related to the jobs directly but to the various other things which got covered directly or indirectly. First on the list was the traffic scenario from the view of an outsider. I having been and brought up in a similar city in India faced similar situation whenever I land in India taking a day or two to get used to the driving, Blaring horns, lack of rules and huge number of vehicles. If this was my situation I feel pity for an American who has never faced such a situation and has to live in such conditions for 30 days.

Second on my list was covered in detail in the show and that is the non-technical jobs in the call centers. Everyone covers about the technical jobs and the hefty pay packages they get paid for doing the job. But no one looks at the janitors who maintains the building, the security guys who make sure that you are working in a safe environment (ofcourse the main reason they are there is to stop you from stealing stuff from the building), and who can forget the chauffeurs you get to make sure you can come to office and leave office at erratic hours without worrying about transportation. These are not the only people there are also chefs in some of the offices who make sure you can get a snack whenever you need one. But are these people really getting a better lifestyle because of the call centers? Are their families living a better life and able to provide 3 decent meals a day? Well I am not sure of the answers but I do have a lot of questions and wish they had all the right answers.

Third on my list is the erratic behavior of the public. This was the crazy behavior of the bangalorean public when their favorite actor Rajkumar passed away. The show was filmed during this time and showed the situation in bangalore from an americans point of view when the actor died. I agree he was a great actor and was worshipped by many of his fans. But is it seriously necessary to damage public transport, get a Bandh called just to show that you lost your idol. People get a life. Show him respect by playing his songs or telecasting his movies not by burning public and private transportations on the road, throwing stones on buildings and injuring and troubling poor innocent people who are trying to carry on with their day to day life. Did you guys realise that you might have indirectly been responsible for some people to lose their daily food by resorting to this kind of behavior.

Well I guess I put forth most of my thoughts after seeing the experiences of a non-Indian in an India for 30 days. Looking forward for comments.

-S