As we know, India's talent in IT (Software Services) is world famous. Being an IT professional myself, I have worked in many Indian Cities (Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune and Bhubaneswar) and also for long periods in UK & US. In the course of my career I have had colleagues/customers from all parts of India and also from different parts of the world.
One of the reasons cited for India's dominance of the IT Industry worldwide is our knowledge of the English language, a legacy of our colonial past. It has stood us in good stead in competition with (say) the Chinese.
No doubt this is an advantage. But as we know in different parts of India, the English language is spoken differently. The local flavour and accent comes into English as well. We also take all kinds of liberties with the language. In doing this, I believe, we have enriched the English language.
I would want to share some vignettes I came across during the course of my 16 year in the IT industry.
When I was in US, a guy called Poorna joined us from our Offshore (India) team . The practice we followed was, the manager used to issue a laptop to the new joiner. Our manager was a guy called Johnson Kumar. He had all the laptops with him. Poorna used to remind Johnson everyday to get a laptop for him but Johnson kept forgetting. This went on for a few days, till Poorna got a bit agitated. He told Johnson one day when he was leaving for the day 'Johnson, I hope you will be remembered' (he actually meant, 'I hope you will remember!!).
To this Johnson replied 'Man, I am still alive'..........
Poorna's use of adjectives was limited to the word 'Beautiful'...........everything good was 'Beautiful'.....
We were in a meeting with our American customers when they raised an issue that our team lacked expert Automation testers. Poorna totally disagreed with this and retorted - 'Sorry, but I think we have absolutely beautiful automation testers........we can supply as many as you want' !!
There was another lady colleague whose colourful phrases had me stumped many times. Once when I asked her what her brother did, she replied 'He is in Sierra Atlanta'. I was left wondering whether he is in Sierra Atlantic (An IT Company) or in Atlanta, USA!
On another occasion, in a meeting with our British colleagues she gave an update on her work 'We had an issue with this server for many weeks which increased the workload for Fraser. But i have solved this problem with the server and hence I hope now Fraser will be relieved of his pressure'.
Poor Fraser was left in an embarrassing situation in the meeting!
She once gave the reason for her absence the previous day 'I was so sick of yesterday'...........When asked for status of her work, she will frequently say 'I am still working out on that'. Some other gems from her -
'Just wanted to make sure you are sync with me and I am sync with you'
'After long back I am doing this'
'My outlook is overflowing'
I had another colleague, Sakthi, who was my offshore (India) counterpart when I was managing the team in UK. There was this girl in our India team who was very keen on coming onsite (UK). She had raised this many times with us. In a meeting with Sakthi, I asked him what are her core skills, to understand if we have any positions in UK where she can be placed. To this Sakthi replied - 'Sorry Alam, I am not sure, I have only touched her lightly' !! (He meant he hadn't interacted with her much!).............
On another occasion he told me - 'Alam, we need to work neck & neck' ......which I was able to decipher later, he meant 'shoulder to shoulder'. He can be pardoned for that one, neck being very close to the shoulder.
In my first job, when I joined straight from college, my Project Manager was one Mr Himanshu Giri. Giri Sir (as we called him) was a very a amiable man. He has a few gems to his credit too. Once when asked to felicitate some clients who were visiting our Bhubaneswar Centre, he started like this 'I, on behalf of myself, would like to present this bucket (bouquet !!) of flowers..................'
In our group of new joiners he particularly liked one Rajkumar Sinha. One day he addressed us, 'You should all try to be like Raj. He is the prototype of this team.'
Another colleague of mine Kamesh was famous for his murderous assaults on the English language. Once I asked him - 'Kamesh, I am unable to install this softwrare on my machine. How did you do it?'. He replied in all seriousness 'It was easy. Dhananjaya was installed on my machine' ! (which can be deciphered as 'Dhanajaya installed it on my machine'). He would consistently use such language in meetings to leave our British colleagues flabbergasted !!
Another friend of mine, Madhu Shanmughan used to tell us about some 'gaffes' he committed when he came first to UK. The first day he came to office after coming from India, he was feeling very jet lagged. In office, he met an English lady colleague who he already knew while he worked from India on the same project, being on conference calls with her. She greeted him warmly and they chatted for a few minutes. Then she told him, 'Madhu, nice meeting you, will catchup with you later, I need to go to the rest room'.
To this Madhu replied 'I am feeling very tired myself, can I come with you to the rest room please?'
After a few weeks, Madhu's wife Sudha came from India to join him in UK. That afternoon, Madhu was quite happy and told his colleague Matt, 'I need to leave early today, my wife Sudha is coming from India'....
Matt replied 'That's great, Madhu, have a nice evening with Sudha'......as a matter of habit Madhu responded 'Same to you too, Matt'...............-:)
None of us are perfect. I have committed a few 'gaffes' myself............perhaps this is one of the ways in which we Indians are taking revenge for the two centuries of British Raj !
The secret of success of the Indian IT industry is, despite the fact that we keep 'breaking the leg' (अंग्रेजी की टांग तोड़ना) of the English language, we are always able to get our point across, anywhere in the world.
And that, friends, is what communication is all about.
One of the reasons cited for India's dominance of the IT Industry worldwide is our knowledge of the English language, a legacy of our colonial past. It has stood us in good stead in competition with (say) the Chinese.
No doubt this is an advantage. But as we know in different parts of India, the English language is spoken differently. The local flavour and accent comes into English as well. We also take all kinds of liberties with the language. In doing this, I believe, we have enriched the English language.
I would want to share some vignettes I came across during the course of my 16 year in the IT industry.
When I was in US, a guy called Poorna joined us from our Offshore (India) team . The practice we followed was, the manager used to issue a laptop to the new joiner. Our manager was a guy called Johnson Kumar. He had all the laptops with him. Poorna used to remind Johnson everyday to get a laptop for him but Johnson kept forgetting. This went on for a few days, till Poorna got a bit agitated. He told Johnson one day when he was leaving for the day 'Johnson, I hope you will be remembered' (he actually meant, 'I hope you will remember!!).
To this Johnson replied 'Man, I am still alive'..........
Poorna's use of adjectives was limited to the word 'Beautiful'...........everything good was 'Beautiful'.....
We were in a meeting with our American customers when they raised an issue that our team lacked expert Automation testers. Poorna totally disagreed with this and retorted - 'Sorry, but I think we have absolutely beautiful automation testers........we can supply as many as you want' !!
There was another lady colleague whose colourful phrases had me stumped many times. Once when I asked her what her brother did, she replied 'He is in Sierra Atlanta'. I was left wondering whether he is in Sierra Atlantic (An IT Company) or in Atlanta, USA!
On another occasion, in a meeting with our British colleagues she gave an update on her work 'We had an issue with this server for many weeks which increased the workload for Fraser. But i have solved this problem with the server and hence I hope now Fraser will be relieved of his pressure'.
Poor Fraser was left in an embarrassing situation in the meeting!
She once gave the reason for her absence the previous day 'I was so sick of yesterday'...........When asked for status of her work, she will frequently say 'I am still working out on that'. Some other gems from her -
'Just wanted to make sure you are sync with me and I am sync with you'
'After long back I am doing this'
'My outlook is overflowing'
I had another colleague, Sakthi, who was my offshore (India) counterpart when I was managing the team in UK. There was this girl in our India team who was very keen on coming onsite (UK). She had raised this many times with us. In a meeting with Sakthi, I asked him what are her core skills, to understand if we have any positions in UK where she can be placed. To this Sakthi replied - 'Sorry Alam, I am not sure, I have only touched her lightly' !! (He meant he hadn't interacted with her much!).............
On another occasion he told me - 'Alam, we need to work neck & neck' ......which I was able to decipher later, he meant 'shoulder to shoulder'. He can be pardoned for that one, neck being very close to the shoulder.
In my first job, when I joined straight from college, my Project Manager was one Mr Himanshu Giri. Giri Sir (as we called him) was a very a amiable man. He has a few gems to his credit too. Once when asked to felicitate some clients who were visiting our Bhubaneswar Centre, he started like this 'I, on behalf of myself, would like to present this bucket (bouquet !!) of flowers..................'
In our group of new joiners he particularly liked one Rajkumar Sinha. One day he addressed us, 'You should all try to be like Raj. He is the prototype of this team.'
Another colleague of mine Kamesh was famous for his murderous assaults on the English language. Once I asked him - 'Kamesh, I am unable to install this softwrare on my machine. How did you do it?'. He replied in all seriousness 'It was easy. Dhananjaya was installed on my machine' ! (which can be deciphered as 'Dhanajaya installed it on my machine'). He would consistently use such language in meetings to leave our British colleagues flabbergasted !!
Another friend of mine, Madhu Shanmughan used to tell us about some 'gaffes' he committed when he came first to UK. The first day he came to office after coming from India, he was feeling very jet lagged. In office, he met an English lady colleague who he already knew while he worked from India on the same project, being on conference calls with her. She greeted him warmly and they chatted for a few minutes. Then she told him, 'Madhu, nice meeting you, will catchup with you later, I need to go to the rest room'.
To this Madhu replied 'I am feeling very tired myself, can I come with you to the rest room please?'
After a few weeks, Madhu's wife Sudha came from India to join him in UK. That afternoon, Madhu was quite happy and told his colleague Matt, 'I need to leave early today, my wife Sudha is coming from India'....
Matt replied 'That's great, Madhu, have a nice evening with Sudha'......as a matter of habit Madhu responded 'Same to you too, Matt'...............-:)
My friend Vineet Panicker had a Manager who had the habit of cutting short anyone indulging in a long winded explanation with 'kachche main baat karo....kachche main !!.,,,,,,by this he meant 'talk in brief'.....he would make a word by word translation of this into Hindi -:)
None of us are perfect. I have committed a few 'gaffes' myself............perhaps this is one of the ways in which we Indians are taking revenge for the two centuries of British Raj !
The secret of success of the Indian IT industry is, despite the fact that we keep 'breaking the leg' (अंग्रेजी की टांग तोड़ना) of the English language, we are always able to get our point across, anywhere in the world.
And that, friends, is what communication is all about.
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