In the 1990s, most of my friends from school had flown the nest, chasing a silicon dream. Back home, the parents, especially the mothers, of these young software engineers had forged a bond. They would never miss an opportunity to meet up. I remember one of these friends, working in the United States, coining a phrase for them — ‘The mothers of Chennai’.
Clearly, the parents missed their children, but were convinced they were where they should be. On rare occasions when I would pop into their lives, these parents would ask me what I was doing, in a tone that betrayed more concern than curiosity. In their math of life, literature plus journalism did not equal success. In fact, going by the mood of those times, even if I had done medicine, I would have still been viewed as someone who missed the software bus.
In those days, no matter what you studied in college, you had to set aside your evenings for computer education. NIIT (National Institute of Information Technology) and Aptech were household names. Software education was spreading like wildfire. New institutes were cropping up faster than mushrooms.
To develop a functional knowledge of computers, I did a diploma course with an institute that seemed to be on an ambitious expansion spree. Universal Institute of Information Technology, based in Thiruvananthapuram, had taken an entire floor in a building near Gemini flyover, and offered full-fledged computer courses on par with degrees from colleges.
The American dream
Almost everybody else in my class had larger computer ambitions. After completing the basic diploma with me, they would move on to the meatier and more challenging modules in the other semesters. In that space near Gemini flyover, I could feel the pull of the American dream.
The IT boom of the late 1990s further mythicised the Indian software engineer as someone who had decoded the secret of success and happiness. Around that time, in the matrimonial market place, IT professionals were hot property.
Myths thrive where access to information is limited. That’s true of the Indian software engineer, especially those working in the United States. The people in software I had known from the 1990s were mostly working abroad. In such a situation, it is difficult to take a realistic stock of their lives at work and beyond.
In those days, for many back home, the overpowering image of the software engineer was that of a youngster rolling in green backs, defiant in the face of extreme pressure and a notch smarter than the rest of the homo sapiens.
Since the 2000s, when the domestic software industry began to get robust, the software techie has become more flesh-and-blood than before. They share the road with you on their way to work, sometimes sitting folded, next to you in a cramped share autorickshaw. They share a table with you at the restaurant around the corner.
Now, when I watch parades of young software professionals go down the service lane, on Chennai’s IT Corridor, where I live, I find myself viewing Indian techies in a whole new light. They come across as small pinions that keep a mammoth, almost impersonal, industry rolling.
It is an industry with too many variables that are controlled by factors such as international politics, technological disruption and a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) market.
And, I think, in the mind of the larger population, much of the envy and admiration for the Indian software engineer has given way to pity.
