The Hindu Business Line : Stay cool man, don't join the clan!

Flashback. To 1980. That's probably a black and white image in your mind. Provided you were born then! It is vivid in my mind though, as it meant my entry into IIM Bangalore and a completely new life with a host of experiences.

One of these was getting to meet the `Coimbatore gang' who were my batch mates and hostel mates. They were an admirable bunch of guys whom you went to when you had a problem in operations research that you couldn't crack or a balance sheet that would not tally. They had ready smiles, sharp minds and high CGPAs (cumulative grade point average).

And yet, they had a problem that I am sure was not immediately apparent to them. They had a collective `do not disturb' sign for all those others who were not part of the group. They all stayed in the same wing.

They all spoke in Tamil with each other. Came to the mess together. Left the mess together. Boarded the bus together. Walked to `uncles' together, in the middle of the night for `Badam haalu' together, with their lungis in half mast (as my north Indian friends would describe it). They shared a common love for Ilayaraja's music and Rajnikanth's films or whatever was the Tamilian turn-on at that point in time.

My other batch mates were initially puzzled, later bemused and finally a bit annoyed with this clannishness.

Today, the `Coimbatore gang' has separated and each lives in different parts of the world. Some of them are `movers and shakers', the global delivery head of a large software major, an actuary in a global insurance company, the HR head of a large MNC and the list goes on. Wonderful guys individually but collectively a clique, a cartel, a clan, a cabal or so they were perceived.

Out of your comfort zone

All of us cannot be Steve Waugh to move out of our comfort zones easily.

At campus, at the workplace and even at parties, like homing pigeons, we seek our own college mates, our own jaathwallas, people who speak our own language, people from our own village and so on. There certainly is a problem when we hang out with like-minded, similar thinking, same language speaking people, however fun it may be to be in our own private exclusive world. We are alienating others without even realising it.

Let me take you to another hot February afternoon in Bangalore. After a particularly frustrating round of golf, we made our way to the pub to drown our sorrows. In the next table were four `software types.' (In Bangalore incidentally, there are not too many other types). They obviously worked in a successful software company. Three of them were from Chandrababu Naidu's own country. While the fourth was from the North East. They all ordered drinks (what else do people do in pubs). And I kept admiring them surreptitiously. After all this was national integration at work.

As usual, I was wrong. It was the old boy network at work. The three gentlemen had a field day in Telugu, speaking loudly, sharing intimate details about their project leader and the love (!) they shared for him and how miserable the company was and I am sure you get the picture. My friend from the North East could have been in a different planet even if he was sharing the same table. He kept studiously sending SMS messages to someone in Imphal, or some such place that seemed closer to him than Koramangala in Bangalore.

And to add insult to injury, suddenly one of the babus would remember the North East. "Hope you are enjoying yourself," he would ask and my poor alienated friend from "India minor" would mumble "fine." Was he enjoying himself? Not by a long shot! Has this happened to you? Have you done this to someone else? I have and I am ashamed.

Global village or villager in the globe?

Today we are part of the global economy. We study in campuses that have a cross-section of India.

Our work place has a diverse mix of people from diverse backgrounds and ethnic groups as well. Our customers belong to different socio economic classifications, perhaps very different from our own cultural backgrounds.

Our success in life is going to depend on our ability to rise above our regional differences and parochial preferences and have a genuine consideration, sensitivity and empathy for our peers who just happen to speak a different language or share a different culture. So, the next time you meet someone from your village, just don't greet him in your native tongue. Remember you are a global Indian. Stand up and be counted as someone who is different. And that will be cool man!

(The writer, an alumnus of IIM, Bangalore, is CEO of Brand-comm.)