Saturday, October 28 Gurgaon, IIT

I got to Delhi early in the morning. I swear over the past two days people have been starting to suit up for winter. Everyone from the First-class passengers to the bicycle rickshaw drivers are wearing shawls and sweaters in the mornings. The weather is actually really pleasant, though, right now, so I’m going to try and explore Delhi as best I can now. I spent the whole day among India’s new money. I took the bus across town to Gurgaon, the really modern and young town in Haryana right outside Delhi. As the center of the IT and outsourcing industry in North India, it has a ton of call centers, new cars, and brand-new enormous consumer shopping malls. However, the road was being built, so the bus dropped me off in Old Gurgaon, a dusty old dirty city with tons of small local shops and bicycle rickshaws. I had to walk and ask around in order to catch the right rickshaws to the worthwhile part of Gurgaon. I was surprised that the bourgeois call center representatives have to deal with these small inefficient modes of travel to get to work. On the road to Sahara Mall (some big shopping mall all the rickshaw drivers knew), the streets started getting wider, the cars started getting nicer, and buildings started getting taller. When I got out, I felt like I was in Los Angeles (I say Los Angeles because it’s dusty and dry, there are nice modern skyscrapers, but right next to them are shacks and dirt roads). Cows, construction workers, and bicycle rickshaws all jostled up against the ultra-sleek glass and steel buildings covered in signs like Ericsson, State Bank of India, Philips, IBM, and Dell. The brand I know the best is Dell, so I walked to the building that was sporting its letters. There was construction, and women in saris and men covered in dirt toiled under the hot sun while call center employees look out from their clean, comfortable offices. I took the elevator, which had an attendant, up to the third floor. I was instantly greeted by a team of security guards in front of a wall with the Dell logo on it. They didn’t speak English, so one of the nerdy employees had to translate. I told him I was an American student at Delhi University (I showed my passport to prove it), doing a project on the economic liberalization, and I have to research the IT industry (it’s actually true), so against BPO policy, he let me in the premises. Apparently Saturday is not a work day (If I’m not mistaken, I thought that people call tech support 24/7), so no one was in the office. I got to see where the employees work, and it’s a big room, with a good towering view of the city, and rows upon rows of long desks with state-of-the-art Dell computers and computerized high-tech phones for each desk. The worker told me to come back during the week to see it in action. I’m definitely going to do it. If I forget the way, if worst comes to worst, I could always just call Dell tech support for America and ask for directions to the actual office in India. I had lunch at Sahara Mall, a huge modern shopping mall comparable to any in the United States (prices are also comparable). I had lunch for $4, which is really expensive. Then I caught the bus back to Delhi, and got out at IIT (Indian Institute of Technology). I took a rickshaw to the front gate, and went inside. The IIT system is a network, like the University of California, with eight campuses all over India. IIT is a public school, set up by Nehru, largely by the United States. It is a world-class institution, and produces many engineers that eventually come to work and study in the United States and make more money than I ever will. This is where the best and the brightest out of a billion people get their education. In terms of the actual facilities, it’s just like any other college campus, with sprawling lawns, nice trees, large halls, dorms, and nice roads. I explored the campus, and went inside one of the buildings. I had to sneak in from the roof because they check IDs at the front door. Sketchy. I walked in the halls, and glanced inside the windows of the rooms. Some were really nice lecture/seminar halls, others were offices, and others were state-of-the-art computer labs with flat-screen Windows machines. One of the classrooms’ signs instead of “Class”, said “Ass”. Even nerds can have fun. People were in each room, doing projects or just taking advantage of the world-class resources. I walked around the main buildings of campus, and talked to an applicant named Inam, who was in line to register for the JEE, a huge entrance examination for MA in engineering. You need a form with a picture and information about yourself and your family. Apparently it’s hard to get into IIT, since there are 400,000 applicants for 5,000 spots. One thing that has plagued the schools is the influx of lower-achieving students that are here because of reservation quotas, like affirmative action. However, since 50% of the Indian population fits this category, the majority speaks in a Democratic society. About the reservation quotas, although they allot a certain number of spots for these students, to attend IIT you have to be at a certain level, and many don’t meet the minimum criteria. I met two other students who epitomize IIT’s student body. One was a wealthy, smooth-talking Delhiite Vinod who looks white and wants to do civil engineering and then come to the US and get an MBA. The other was a nerdy short guy, who just giggled at everything we said, with crumbs and glasses on his face. They are my age, and doing a project they procrastinated on. It was Diwali holiday, but school starts on Monday, so they’re not excited. They spend a lot of time doing homework, and it’s all math and sciences. They only take 4 semester classes of humanities-style classes, because it’s mostly an engineering college. Most classes are lecture-style, with a lab. Material is based on participation and a huge final exam, with two smaller midterms. It’s competitive, because grades are based on rankings, not letter grades. But they said it’s much harder to get in than to graduate. It’s not expensive because it’s a public school; the thought is, if you can get the grades, money isn’t an issue. When you get into IIT, you get to choose which campus to enroll in. IIT New Delhi, Mumbai, Kanpur, and Madras are the most prestigious, and IIT Guwahati the least. However, most students choose the one closest to home, because family is very important to Indians. Vinod wants to go to school for civil engineering or business at UC Berkeley. They have no desire to study in India; everyone here’s goal is to get into a school in the United States (the US even more so than schools in Europe or Asia), whereas Americans go abroad to party. Or to meet over-qualified but underprivileged IIT students who don’t get why the hell I’d choose to study in India when I have US citizenship. Still, I feel severely incompetent and worthless coming from the political science department at Delhi University. I then walked over to the dorms (here, they’re called Hostels thanks to the British). I went inside. One and only one thing comes to mind; prison. The dining hall is all steel and uniform, and the students are required to call each dining hall worker “Butler Sahab”. The rooms have dirty or broken tiny windows facing an open courtyard, with laundry hanging out. There is a big TV room, computer lab, library study, ping-pong table, and drum set. It’s pretty much the dorms. I was looking at the names of the residents, and they were all names I am familiar with: Jain, Maholtra, Kumar, Yadav, Patel, and Gupta, and Singh. Because these are mostly rich Brahmins, who dominate the professional jobs. I feel creepy, like I’m a 40-year old reminiscing about my glory days living in the dorms. It seemed really fun, though, like a normal college in the United States, and not like an IIT. I talked to another student Vivek, who was sitting on the grass. I asked what IIT students do for fun, and he replied, “We have a computer lab and a LAN connection”. However, he said dorm life is really fun because all your friends are around, and everyone stays during the weekends, besides the people who live in Delhi or around. People play cricket and tennis, and then (after a long demanding week) go out and drink because IIT New Delhi is in South Delhi, a posh area. He made it sound like people don’t really study, but to be at IIT, I’m guessing “don’t really study” means “five hours a day”. He laughed when I asked about the girls, and then told me they live way on the other side of campus, are mostly in chemical engineering, and only make up 10% of the student population. I took the city bus back to Connaught Place and caught dinner and watched Lage Raho Munna Bhai, a popular Bollywood film.