Two Lessons From Indra Nooyi’s Success

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By now, most readers probably know that Indra Nooyi is being promoted to the CEO of PepsiCo, a company with $38 billion in revenues. She’s been mentioned several times before on Sepia Mutiny, mainly in response to comments she made at a graduation ceremony at Columbia Business School last year. (There are several other posts on her as well.) And Manish had a solid post on her recent promotion this past Monday on Ultrabrown.

I draw two conclusions from her success. First, you can be a working mother and climb the corporate ladder while raising kids (Indra has two, who are I believe in their early/mid teens). Second, you can get ahead in the American corporate environment without sacrificing who you are culturally.

On the first point, there have been many recent stories about the difficulties facing powerful women. Maureen Dowd, for instance, recently published a book called Are Men Necessary?, where (among other things) she talked about the difficulty some women face in dating and/or marrying men who are less powerful or successful than they are. But a growing number of “power moms” are also flat-out powerful. And they do it without sacrificing their connection to their kids, as I think Indra Nooyi’s Nintendo policy proves:

She views PepsiCo as an extended family and everybody at the company is there to help in every way possible. Sometime ago, when Indra was traveling, her daughter would call the office to ask for permission to play Nintendo. The receptionist would know the routine and ask: “Have you finished your homework? Have you had your snack? OK, you can play Nintendo for half an hour”. She then left a voice message for Indra saying “I gave Tara permission to play Nintendo”. (link)

Have you had your snack? Ok, go play. Momma has to go acquire a multinational or two and pacify the Indian media regarding the recent pesticide allegations.

Secondly, you don’t have to sell yourself out and tell everyone your name is “Bob” if it’s really Balwinder. Nooyi’s story about getting her first job in the U.S. after completing her Master’s at Yale is illustrative:

A story of this determined girl, who while studying in Connecticut, worked as a receptionist from midnight to sunrise to earn money and struggled to put together US$50 to buy herself a western suit for her first job interview out of Yale, where she had just completed her masters. Incidentally, she wasn’t comfortable trying out a formal western outfit and ended up buying trousers that reached down only till her ankles. Rejected at the interview, she turned to her professor at the school who asked her what she would wear if she were to be in India. To her reply that it would be a sari, the professor advised her to “be yourself” and stick to what she was comfortable with. She wore a sari for her next interview. She got the job and has followed this philosophy for the rest of her career. (link)

And she’s not afraid of letting people know she is a practicing Hindu:

She lives with her husband and two daughters in Fairfax county, Connecticut. If you ever visit her Connecticut home, do remember to take your shoes off before entering. If you forget, at least remember to take them off before entering the large puja room where a diya is lit and the inviting air of incense greets you. She keeps an image of Ganesha in her office, and in fact, some PepsiCo officials visited India and received similar images besides being told of the Hindu belief about Ganesh being the symbols of auspicious beginnings. Many of them now keep images of Ganesh in their offices! Nooyi attends PepsiCo board meetings in a sari; for she believes the corporate world appreciates people who are genuine. (link)

Genuine, huh. I haven’t had that experience with the corporate world. 😉 But more seriously, the point is valid. One can acculturate without assimilating; it is possible to get ahead in life without selling yourself out to the image people expect you to inhabit. There’s no reason to be defensive about being a vegetarian, or preferring mango lassi to martinis, or cricket to baseball… and on and on.

Best of luck to Indra Nooyi!

153 thoughts on “Two Lessons From Indra Nooyi’s Success”

  1. I think there was some controversy relating to last year’s Physics Nobel prize involving E. C. G. Sudarshan of the University of Texas, Austin. I guess some physicists (mostly Indian, so far as I can tell) felt that the prize which went to Roy Glauber should have been shared with Sudarshan. The Indian magazine Frontline reports it here.

    Sudarshan is another Mallu – a Syrian Christian who converted to Hinduism, and yes, he came very close to winning the physics prize. Also Meghnad Saha, a Hindu Bengali Dalit, has an astrophysics equation, the Saha effect, named after him.

  2. Yuck.

    This comment thread, from #69 all the way down, is Sepia Mutiny at its worst.

    Yuck yuck yucketty yuck.

  5. Razib, on Saha. This guy is inspiring. Being impure and all that nonsense, upper castes wouldn’t let him dine in the same hall as him at college:

    Megnadh Saha

    In the l9th century physicists developed a technique by which one can identify what chemical element is present in a distant source by carefully examining (by means of a spectroscope) the light emanating from it. This method of analysis opens up the possibility of knowing the composition of stars and of our own sun. It was undoubtedly a most important scientific breakthrough. Gradually one came to expect, on the basis of their properties, the presence of certain elements in the sun. However, not all these seemed to be there. In particular, rubidium and cesium which were expected to be in the sun’s chromosphere were conspicuously absent. This remained a mystery until Meghnath Saha came to the scene and solved the puzzle. When Saha was assigned to teach a course on thermodynamics, it occurred to him that perhaps one could combine thermodynamics and (the then emerging) quantum mechanics to a study of matter in stars where the temperatures are extremely high. Thus, his interest turned to astrophysics. Now he is said to have undertaken a systematic study of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society of 25 years. While engaged in this, an insightful idea occurred to him: In chemistry one talks about the dissociation of molecules at high temperatures: that is, molecules break up into their component atoms. In atomic physics, one speaks of ionization: atoms are stripped of their electrons at very high temperatures. Saha worked out a theory based on this analogy. His theory gave a measure of the ionization in a hot gas as a function of temperature and electron pressure. The relevance of all this was in the study of the spectra of light from the sun and stars, a topic that is of great importance in understanding the nature and composition of stellar bodies. Saha’s important results on this subject were published in a classic paper entitled On Ionization in the Solar Chromosphere in the prestigious Philosophical Magazine in 1920. The problems considered in this paper were of enormous moment, and had been suggested by Niels Bohr to some of the brightest physicists of the time. In 1919, when Saha went to Europe for two years, he spent five months at the Imperial College in London where he discussed his ideas with A. Fowler and E. A. Milne, leading astrophysicists of the time. He then traveled in Europe where he had occasion to interact with such giants of the time as Max Planck, Arnold Sommerfeld, and Albert Einstein. These meetings also inspired him to establish scientific research institutions in India. Some leading German physicists did experiments to confirm Saha’s theory. This gave further boost to the theory. In physics, natural phenomena are explained in terms of certain general laws, principles, and equations. Thus we have Newton’s law of gravitation, the principle of matter-energy conservation and Bernoulli’s equation for fluid flow. Other famous equations are Euler’s equations of rotational dynamics, Maxwell’s equations in electromagnetism, and Boltzmann’s equation in thermodynamics. In astrophysics, we have Saha’s equation. Thus Saha is immortalized in physics. Upon his return to India, Saha was appointed professor of physics at Calcutta University. Because he did not find sufficient support for his work here, he moved to Allahabad where he spent the next fifteen years. During this period, he also developed an interest in ionospheric physics. Saha was also an activist. He played an important role in the Indian Science Congress. He established the United Provinces Academy of Sciences, which grew into the National Academy of Sciences. He also initiated the Indian Science News Association, and the National Institute of Science. He started the influential journal Science & Culture which has been publishing countless articles on science and culture over the decades. During India’s freedom struggle, Saha was among the scientists who devoted their full attention to their technical fields, and did not spend as much of their time and energy in fighting the British. Saha was not particularly sympathetic to the khadi movement in which Gandhi and his followers called for a boycott of British goods in favor of developing cottage industries. Saha and others feared this would slow down India’s industrial progress. After India’s independence, however, Saha turned his attention to the social, economic, political, and educational problems confronting the new nation. He now worked hard to rid his people of ancient superstitions and of astrology, though not very successfully. Under his leadership, an institute of nuclear physics was established in Calcutta in 1950, which came to be named after him after his demise. In 1953, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru asked Saha to chair the Calendar Reform Committee to bring about some uniformity among the 30 different calendars then used in India. Saha also served as a Member of the Indian Parliament. Such was the life and work of this great physicist who probed into the workings of stars from here below.

  6. I dont know why Mr. K is having a cow over this discussion!

    Cultural practices in communities do make a big difference. European jews have cultural practices that support literacy (torah reading) and a history of being forced into non-farming occupations (ownership of land by jews was often illegal in europe). This has a strong impact on their representation in sciences, law, professions etc. I dont see this as a racist comment.

    Speaking to South India and specifically southern women: I believe the north indian culture practice of hyper-exogamy in which women are married way outside the family circle and familiar people is critical to this difference. Women have to struggle much harder for support and recognition. Whether this hypothesis would survive deeper analysis and data gathering, I dont know.

    Broadly, in the Indo-Aryan-speaking north, a family seeks marriage alliances with people to whom it is not already linked by ties of blood. Marriage arrangements often involve looking far afield. In the Dravidian-speaking south, a family seeks to strengthen existing kin ties through marriage, preferably with blood relatives. Kinship terminology reflects this basic pattern. In the north, every kinship term clearly indicates whether the person referred to is a blood relation or an affinal relation; all blood relatives are forbidden as marriage mates to a person or a person’s children. In the south, there is no clear-cut distinction between the family of birth and the family of marriage. Because marriage in the south commonly involves a continuing exchange of daughters among a few families, for the married couple all relatives are ultimately blood kin. Dravidian terminology stresses the principle of relative age: all relatives are arranged according to whether they are older or younger than each other without reference to generation. On the Indo-Gangetic Plain, marriages are contracted outside the village, sometimes even outside of large groups of villages, with members of the same caste beyond any traceable consanguineal ties. In much of the area, daughters should not be given into villages where daughters of the family or even of the natal village have previously been given. In most of the region, brother-sister exchange marriages (marriages linking a brother and sister of one household with the sister and brother of another) are shunned. The entire emphasis is on casting the marriage net ever-wider, creating new alliances. The residents of a single village may have in-laws in hundreds of other villages. In most of North India, the Hindu bride goes to live with strangers in a home she has never visited. There she is sequestered and veiled, an outsider who must learn to conform to new ways. Her natal family is often geographically distant, and her ties with her consanguineal kin undergo attenuation to varying degrees.
  8. Chandi My experience of Tam Bram families…encourage sons much more than daughters. The tradition of educating daughters is quite common among some other Brahmin communities too…but encouraging and fostering …That’s rare.

    Your experience is with one family and you are talking of TamBram families?

    What are we doing with cranky and crackpot ideas like IQ?

    And Kush Tandon we are forgetting two other Indians who along with Satyen Bose missed the Nobel for reasons that will forever remain unknown – Meghnad Saha and GN Ramachandran. Now that the Bose Einstein Condensate has been isolated in the lab and the scientists who accomplished this have been awarded the Nobel, the original Bose getting passed over for it seems strange.

    BTW Indra Nooyi reportedly flies into Pittsburgh every Saturday (or every 1st Saturday) to visit the SV Balaji Mandir!

  9. There are plenty of nonsouth Indian businesswomen such as Chanda Kochar, Vidya Chhabria, Shikha Sharma, Lalita Gupte, Nainalal Kidwai, Renuka Ramnath, etc.

  10. you can get ahead in the American corporate environment without sacrificing who you are culturally.

    The American environment is indeed conducive for different cultures to survive. Infact it makes the environment richer. My drunk Irish friends bring in a lot of madness to parties while I read palms after I get drunk.

  11. hmf, but if they advertised him as m. night, wouldn’t we all wonder why and perhaps unfairly accuse them or him of trying to hide his origins?

    Yes, we would. But if producers thought the long name was stopping people from buying tickets to a significant degree, they’d figure a way around it in a heartbeat. Producers are a ruthless bunch, they’d sell their own mothers out for ticket sales.

    after all, they don’t market scorsese as martin or spielberg as simply steven when it would amount to the same thing.

    I think my point is being missed. It’s like when Eminem was rapping in the underground Detriot scene, all he got was “who’s this whiteboy, who’s this whiteboy.. etc. etc..” but when he made it, largely by his own skill, all of a sudden his whiteness became a higher selling point, “He’s such a dope rapper, and he’s white” See my point? Nooyi can be benefiting from the same phenom, albeit to a lesser degree, as she’s not within the mainstream public gaze.

    as for that sci-fi thing, it sounds like they were merely spoofing his penchant for movies with strange twists and the way his mind works. the same way he spoofs himself in that amex ad.

    Dude, watch the SciFi doc. They weren’t spoofing, although they admit it was fiction. Even if you relegate it to a simple marketing campaign to push “The Village”, it still contains things that would never ever be done if MNS was white, and his 4 movies were exactly the same.

  12. Shiva,

    Apologies. I just want to highlight the diversity of talent from India/ Indian subcontinent/ South Asia.

    I should have remembered. I think one of my relatives did PhD under the guidance of Meghnad Saha or colloborated with him. People like Meghnad Saha had to go an extra mile.

    Yes, the guys got Nobel Prize, I think in 1998, for lab experimentation for Bose-Einstein condensate. Once Neils Bohr requested Satyen Bose in audience in a lecture, “Can Professor Bose help me?”

    I think if somebody made a list of 25 greatest physicists of 20th century: CV Raman, Subramaniam Chandrashekhar, Satyen Bose, and Abdus Salam will be in the list along with Einstein, Hans Bethe, Paul Dirac, Neils Bohr. There are published dialogues between Chandrashekar and Abdus Salam, and they are amazing as they touch Science and Progress in third worlds.

  13. Apologies. I just want to highlight the diversity of talent from India/ Indian subcontinent/ South Asia.

    In the “secular” spirit of India, lets not leave out the amazing punjabi khatris

    Many Khatris from very poor families used educational facilities to rise the occupational ladder to become barristers, doctors, professors, writers, journalists, teachers, scientists and army officers. Crucial to their success was the position of Lahore as a centre of excellence in education known throughout India. Khatris went to Lahore to take advantage of its higher educational facilities and settled down there. One of them, Gobind Khurana, later went on to win a Nobel Prize in science. They soon came to dominate the socio-economic life in Lahore and the rest of Punjab.

    While the IT professions are dominated by South Indians, Khatris have done well in this new area as well; some prominent Khatris in the field are Vinod Dham who developed the Pentium chip, Sabir Bhatia who started the hot mail message service and Vinod Khosla, who was among the founders of Sun Microsystems and has helped many South Asians launch successful businesses.

    In an essay in the publication “Five Punjabi Centuries”, Ravinder Kumar writes about Lahore in 1919 (4):

    “The Brahmins did not dominate Hindu society in Punjab as much as in the other parts of the country. The middle classes of the Punjab were drawn predominantly from other commercial castes like the Khatris, the Aroras and the Banias. Of these three castes, the Khatris were outstanding: superior in intellectual and physical energy to the other commercial castes, they claimed a mythical descent from the Kashtariyas or the warrior castes of ancient India.

    Lets hope that all of India’s poor children get excellent pre-natal and natal care, decent nutrition and an enlightened education. Then we will see many more Sahas.

  14. OK jumping a little late on the bandwagon but here are my thoughts on the following:

    First, you can be a working mother and climb the corporate ladder while raising kids (Indra has two, who are I believe in their early/mid teens). Second, you can get ahead in the American corporate environment without sacrificing who you are culturally.

    Coming from an industry that consists of 80% females the issue of getting ahead as a woman who also has other commitments is something I’ve watched closely for over a decade. Yes it’s possible to excel in a “man’s world” and be supermom but I’d hate to be made to believe that it’s easy. Not only does a woman require exceptional support from the people around her including those at work, above, below and at the same level and importantly from the men in their lives they need to be in an environment that fosters their growth as well. Despite trying many women simply don’t find themselves rise above this.

    Also I have personally seen over and over in the past decade women pick motherhood over work because it was next to impossible for them to juggle and get ahead. That is NEVER the case with men. Men will always lean on their wives to pick up the slack of their loss at home but women will always run home to their kids. Having watched all the women I’ve worked with and my own friends struggle with careers and juggling family/children despite often having help the internal struggle that women face over whether they are doing a good job or not is collosal. And last but not least is reaquired an incredibly supportive man who believes in your dream is far more essential than simply personal drive to achieve it.

    That Indra Nooyi has been a successful wife and mother and made it to where she is speaks volumes of her support system not just her alone. Lets not lose sight of that. Not everyone has that luxury.

  15. To the above point I also wanted to mention that as far as diversity the “ceiling” or “impediments” others have experienced is something I never have. Absolutely not dismissing that it happens. I know it does. I have always worked in a diverse evironment and never experienced racism in the corporate world.

  16. Pragma #30 – thanks for the info about Jayshree Ullal. Never knew about her.

    Speaking of Indian businesswomen, did anyone mention Anu Aga (of Thermax)?

  17. Good to see the thread getting back on topic. Let’s not have any caste-discussions!

  18. Topcat, I literally snorted a drink through my nose at “itna sannata…” – it’s not every day one sees a Sholay line used so appropriately in a blog 😉

    Re: desi families and women getting ahead, for all that I love to bitch about the everyday sexism in even the most “liberal” north Indian families, and for all that parents worry about a girl limiting her prospective marriage pool by being “too educated,” I must say that most desi parents I know (in India, I am not talking about the highly selected sample we find in the US) will not stop their daughter from going to an IIT or pursuing a postgraduate education if she is so inclined, and will be proud of her academic achievements. When I read about stereotypes of women being unsuited to science/rationality in American gender studies, that was one area in which I couldn’t relate.

    Of course, our lovely desi culture more than makes up for this by pressuring women to not hurt their dear husbands’ delicate egos by getting ahead of them in their careers, and stigmatizes men’s participation in childcare or sharing of housework when both are sharing work outside the house…

  19. i need more data

    From a very old (1992) IIT Bombay project on Women Engineers in India:

    An examination of the data shows that Kerala has the largest population of women engineers closely followed by Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal and UP come next, in that order

    It seems southern states are ahead. Based on my somewhat unreliable observation and memory from 90s West Bengal, engineering colleges (IIT KGP, JU, BE college) had between 5 and 10 percent women students. A recent IIT Bombay report seems to support that range for IITB and also guesses that it is not that different across IITs. However, anecdotally I have heard that some Tamil Nadu engineering colleges like Anna has between 30 and 40 percent women.It would be interesting to compare the percentages of IIT Madras with other IITs. It must be out there somewhere.

    I also have an impression that the regional variation is not as high for science and medicine as it is for engineering, but a quick search did not give me much.

  20. When I read about stereotypes of women being unsuited to science/rationality in American gender studies, that was one area in which I couldn’t relate

    In India, for a large number of girls, learning science and maths (and English) is the quickest and sometimes the only way to have a career, financial independence and some upward mobility. So it gets respect. I am a FOB, so don’t know much about US. But I would guess at least for some girls, the nerd/geek image of science and the risk of becoming an outcast outweigh future career and financial prospects. I think the stereotyping is one big conspiracy. Science and maths can be obsessive. Time spent in science labs is time not spent in malls. Without teenage girls shopping, who will drive US GDP 70% of which is consumer spending?

  21. Indra Nooyi is obviously a very smart woman but I dont exactly agree with her strategy of wearing a sari to an interview. If you wear a shalwar kameez and chappal to a law firm interview there is a very good chance that they will not give you an offer.

  22. Kush,

    Oh No! What could be better than a physicist such as yourself setting the record straight. Meghnad Saha and Satyen Bose were classmates at Calcutta University and stood 2nd and 1st resply. Saha took the long, hard, and rough road thru school and university. Subjected to many an insult for caste, he shrugged it all away. I have read a little about the interactions between CV Raman and Bose but nothing at all about Raman’s exchanges with Saha. Raman, of course, in his time was a colossus and was known for his rapier wit and putdowns of one and all save Einstein. He brought a veritable host from Europe to teach at IISc during the ’30s and there was actually a time when half of all the substantial discussions on QM/Particles etc was happening at Bangalore. Bose OTOH was humble to a fault. Saha IINW was elected to the Lok Sabha in 1952. The scientific temper we talk of today owes much to Saha’s pioneering efforts. Saha and Raman were in favor of greater autonomy for the traditional universities.

    Salam’s case is very interesting. I am not sure how many in subcontinent realise the profound nature of his work on electroweak unification. A v.v.major follow thru on GR.

    Even of there are some ‘traits’ within each one of India’s numberless ‘communities’ knowing what these are would serve no purpose.

  23. In my 4 years at IIT, I saw a steady increase in the number of girls in each new batch. Very few girls opt for Maths in high school. Most of them prefer biology and commerce..and thus end up as doctors, CAs etc. This explains the low number of women in engineering. As far as the North-South debate goes, its quite true that traditionally South Indians had a greater presence in high-tech jobs (in India and abroad). The situation seems to be changing rapidly. IIT has 6 zones..Kanpur and Delhi being the so called Noth India centers. They account for more than 40% of the entrants these days. Delhi, UP, Bihar and Rajasthan have been churning out tonnes of iitians in recent years. Karnataka, TN and Maharashtra had the most number of engineering colleges till mid 90’s (mostly private). In those days, Noth Indian states did not allow private engineering colleges. The situation has changed now and as a result, lots of new engineering and medical colleges have mushroomed rapidly. In the years to come, this will hopefully ameliorate the skewed statistic.

  24. Saha deserves a good autobiography in English. Ramanujan has several autobiographies and even a play, and is universally recognized as a great mathematician. Most desis don’t even know about Saha. Here’s a guy who rose from a humble caste and class background to make an enduring contribution to human knoweledge.

  26. Shiva,

    Thanks for the link about Vinod Dham’s prof.. I think America’s where it is because of it’s ‘college professors’..

  27. Thanks Shiva. Without your help I wouldn’t have realized that I was using only my personal anecdotal evidence rather than linking to a science journal with recent data about Tambrams. I was presenting an anecdote for discussion, and a personal anecdote becomes comment-worthy when you think it fits into a pattern. And no, it isn’t one family. In the Indian situation, as you well know, one family links you to a vast and extended network of clan and kinship that expands your data quite a bit. My mother-in-law are 12 brothers and sisters of an Iyer family. Count their progeny and their progeny . . .friends in Tambram dominated neighbourhoods in two cities where they lived, my parents’ Tambram colleagues in the north, their married children etc etc. Sampling is a time-honoured strategy in the social sciences.

    Janeofalltrades and SP–excellent, important points. I was also disturbed by Nooyi’s saying that women have to work twice as hard to succeed. Kudos to her for doing so, but why is that something to celebrate and propagate? Isn’t that a crying shame?

    Unrelated point: I’ve just returned from a month in India to re-connect to Sepia Mutiny and the first thing that hit me was the increase in the ‘crankiness’ index in the comments section. Just random, rude, condescending responses to people’s comments. Just saying.

  28. One other point–the large presence of highly educated South Indian Brahmin professionals in the US is often explained by their exodus from TN because of aggressive reservations against them. This was not such a problem in the North until the Mandal Commission in the 90’s.

  29. Hawa Hawai (Mr. India reference? Mogembo kush hua)

    I completely agree with you about the lack of good role models in the non profit industry. In my experience of working both in the NPO sector of India and the US, I sense a very lacksidasical attittude from our peeps in terms of how success is defined in it.

    Something like “Thats very good work you are doing beta”, but in the back of their minds, they know if their kids did it, it could get ugly. However, what I have also seen is that many people work in the corporate sector for many years and convert over to the public sector. I believe that kind of a transition can yield amazing results, bringing a much needed set of skills into the non profit sector. So make the Mahatma’s and come on over! It’ll make you feel really goooooooooooooooooooood. (Creepy emphasis to be added at reader’s discretion!)

  30. Chandi Thanks Shiva. Without your help I wouldn’t have realized…In the Indian situation, as you well know, one family links you to a vast…My mother-in-law are 12 brothers and sisters of an Iyer family. Count their progeny…etc etc. Sampling is a time-honoured strategy…

    Let’s start counting. I am from one of the largest TamBrahm clans in TN. Your sample isn’t tight. In the absence of journal articles on the subject it is best not to generalise.

    As for the exodus of TamBrahms from TN too much is made of the effect of reservations. There are a few cases where very talented professionals have been treated badly. Dr.GN Ramachandran was eased out of Madras University the DMK administration which then went on to drive it into the ground. About a decade ago a brahmin who had been appointed principal of Pachaiappa’s College in Madras was heckled for days and finally thrashed by some pro-Dravidian party students from the college union. The gentleman he was, the principal preferred not to press charges. But several other factors were in play that led to the exodus. The job market for the highly educated shrank during the 60s. Reservations reduced the employment in the state government, but this wasn’t the problem for central government, and public sector jobs. There was no discrimination in the private sector, but this wasn’t growing or offering any challenge those days.

  32. I disagree. Everyone generalizes from their sample and then builds a theory around it. It isn’t as if only the largest sample counts, and no, I don’t see any rule that you have to cite a journal article to float a theory. Cultural observation is more complicated than that. Besides, SM isn’t an academic journal. We are having free-floating conversation.

  33. Chandi

    Count their progeny and their progeny . . .friends…

    Look who’s counting!

    At least in the sciences and engineering one begins the dissertation with a review of work already done on the topic. Cultural observation is quite complicated

    We are having free-floating conversation.

    and a lot of generalising in the air..and let’s all fly kites while we are at it!

  34. Sure I am counting my own sample. Believe me, in the humanities and social sciences too, you begin a conference paper, academic publication, or seminar presentation with a literature review. But when I begin an informal conversation with a group of people about ‘my experience’ and ask them what they think, as I did above, I rarely get requests for citations. It’s a question of discrimination, about speaking in different formats with different audiences. This difference in genre is something we learn in the humanities and social sciences and don’t get all bothered about. I am not presenting my experience as unquestionable research. I also said in my earlier posting that what I noted was not only a feature of Tam Bram families. I was questioning their own promotion of their culture as according women a higher status. That seemed to apply only to the mother figure. Here is a controversy that raised similar issues recently, and there’s your journal article.

  35. One can acculturate without assimilating; it is possible to get ahead in life without selling yourself out to the image people expect you to inhabit.

    You listening, “Slade Ryan” Jindal?

  36. Hello Meenakshi-devi:

    It was so heartening to know that at least one person shares my pain over being a desi in the U.S. nonprofit sector. Have you noticed how other people simply ignored our point and went on yakking about the reasons for the enviable success of crafty and avaricious Tamil Brahmin ladies in the world of business and high-tech? Ooh, what an earth-shaking revelation! We also probably made the mistake of raising the issue too late in the discussion thread. I guess we’ll have to be ready with our guerilla tactics the next time the Mutineers go gaga about the promotion of some other desi corporate bigwig. Until then, namaste.

  37. Hawa hawai, I’m an academic desi who used to work in nonprofits, and I know loads of desis doing great nonprofit work in NYC (they tend to be mainly American-born). The World Bank and to some extent UNDP also have tons of desis, esp. economists. Desis are well-represented in graduate programs in the social sciences too! Though of course, we get the “very clever, beta, you’re doing a PhD” or “that’s good work you’re doing” rather than being boasted about in the same way as the banker beta or software startup beta. And heaven forbid you try to do that as a desi son, rather than a daughter…

  38. Surprisingly, there isn’t the same attitude towards social service careers in India.

  39. Razib wrote: “the iq for south asia in the aggregate studies is around the low 80s. see lynn & vanhanen. here’s a survey, control-f “india.”

    Thats well below the global average. Does that condemn the Indian Subcontinent to perpetual bacdkwardness relative to Europe, America and East Asia?

    Ms. Warrior is not a TamBrahm, she is, I gather a MALLU! Her community name is more commonly anglicized as Warrier, and more rarely as Variyar -administraors and temple assistants. Shyamalan’s mom is most definitely a Tamil Mudaliar –also administrators– from Pondy, but his dad is a Mallu too.<<

    That means both Warrior and Shyamalan are Sudras…..from the Namboodri brahmin perspective. A century ago Vivekananda described Kerala described Kerala as a ‘madhouse’ of casteism. The commies cleaned house though it seems.

    Nobel laureattes CV Raman and Subramanyan Chandrashekhar, Chess champion Vishwanathan anand, Spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravishankar, Writer Pico Iyer are a few from south Indian Iyer community alone.<<

    Here is an anecdote: When Chandrashekhar was introduced to a prominent white american professor in the 1950s, he refused to shake Chandra’s hands for he saw him as a black man! This was pre-Civil Rights. So the brahmin got a taste of what sudras and dalits have to endure in India.

    Sudarshan is another Mallu – a Syrian Christian who converted to Hinduism, and yes, he came very close to winning the physics prize. Also Meghnad Saha, a Hindu Bengali Dalit, has an astrophysics equation, the Saha effect, named after him.<<

    Didnt know that Saha was an untouchable. Very useful information.

    While the IT professions are dominated by South Indians, Khatris have done well in this new area as well; some prominent Khatris in the field are Vinod Dham who developed the Pentium chip, Sabir Bhatia who started the hot mail message service and Vinod Khosla, who was among the founders of Sun Microsystems and has helped many South Asians launch successful businesses.<<

    Very interesting. Seems like the majority of indian over-achievers are non-brahmins after all.

  40. For every Indra Nooyi type of success, there are 100,000 software types who never even make it to middle management leave alone top management. Spending your twenties and thirties writing code is allright but when you get to 40 and you still have to debug code to earn your pay check it’s not fun.

  41. I agree with Floridian about attitudes toward social service work in India. Although it doesn’t pay much there either, people seem to look at it with a different view. Perhaps its because the generations that immigrated here before us have been “professionals” (docs and engineers)and people still carry those attitudes toward careers. Although things are changing now.

    On the other hand, sometimes I also feel that being able to work for a social cause is a privilege of sorts. If I were responsible for supporting my entire family, I probably would have had to choose a more lucrative field to get into. For some its not a choice.

    Also I don’t really consider World Bank and UNDP as non profits. I mean they may be in their expanded mission and all, but they are so huge they are basically corporations (in terms of salaries and operations), in my opinion. I am talking about working with substance abuse, homeless, AIDS, community health, and other issues that often involve direct service.

  42. Chandi,

    So that’s a journal article is? Phew! I was expecting something from a real journal. If you haven’t read it it’s about the trouble Khusboo landed in after she spoke out against the repressive sexual mores expected of women in India. And the grooup that made her life miserable are the progressive groups of Tamizh Nadu, the Dalit Panthers, Dravida Kazhagam, and the assorted riff raff that make up the cadre of almost every political group in TN. Suhasini Maniratnam a brahmin atheist and S.Ve.Shekhar (a bramhin theist) who came to her defence were thretened with violence, abused and vilified in the media with nary a progrwessive coming to their defence. The AIDWA and BJP in TN after most of the damage was done made some tame remarks. That’s all. A few weeks later when Sania Mirza said much the same thing as Khusboo did the radical Islamic clerics whipped themselves up into a frenzy. This time the ABVP and a few other worthies decided to show off their secular credentials by adding their voice to that of the clerics.

    Shazam; your talent for pulling bakwas out of your hat is remarkable! But with so much of it flying around SM readers have a fine bakwas detector. Next time try a little less fakery.

  43. Shiva indulged in an ad hominem attack: “Shazam; your talent for pulling bakwas out of your hat is remarkable! But with so much of it flying around SM readers have a fine bakwas detector. Next time try a little less fakery.”

    Which part of my post was bakwas and fakery? The part about the Iyer brahmin Chandrashekhar being treated like a black pariah in America? Perhaps you think his own wife must be lying and bakwas-ing. But why on earth would she do so? Here is the evidence:

    http://www.sawf.org/Newedit/edit02192001/musicarts.asp

    “In the essay “My Everlasting Flame” his wife, Lalitha, reminisces thus:….. Now why did Mr. Hutchins make this statement to me on two different occasions? There is no question he must have remembered how Dean Gale of the Physics Department had refused to allow Chandra to lecture at the campus. The refusal was blunt: he did not want this black scientist from India to lecture in his department.”

    Or was it the Vivekanda quote ridiculing Kerala of a century ago as a “madhouse” of casteism that you object to as fakery? Perhaps you need to read more:

    http://www.religionandspirituality.com/view.php?StoryID=20060606-105641-6370r

    “In Kerala, a South Indian state, it was said that even until the early 20th century caste distinction and caste oppression was so stark and brutal that Swami Vivekananda described Kerala as “a madhouse of casteism”. The Namboodiri Brahmins were known to have practiced extremely vile practices of oppressing the lower caste and the “untouchable” inhabitants of Kerala”

    Or was it my point that the Namboodiri brahmins of Kerala considered all castes other than themselves to be Sudras, that you consider bakwas? Probably thats the point that got your goat the most, for as a tamil brahmin you too would qualify as a mere sudra or untouchable….from the orthodox Nambhoodri perspective. You know its true, so why lie and make yourself look stupid:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nair

    “Despite this elite status, the Nairs were called ‘Savarna Sudras’ by Kerela’s Namboodiri Brahmins. Namboodiris are the most orthodox Brahmins of India and regard all non-Namboodiri castes as untouchable, including even other Brahmins. Thus in Kerala all castes below the Namboodiris– right from the Kokanastha Brahmins, Iyers to the Mlechas–were untouchable. Unseeability and unapproachability were also practised in the Kerala society. Only a Nair could approach a Namboodiri, while the remaining castes had to maintain specific distances from the Namboodiris and Nairs.”

  44. That means both Warrior and Shyamalan are Sudras…..from the Namboodri brahmin perspective. A century ago Vivekananda described Kerala described Kerala as a ‘madhouse’ of casteism. The commies cleaned house though it seems.

    from the namboodiri brahmin perspective Tamil Iyers were borderline untouchable. They were mocked in Kerala as “swamis” and “pattars.” Yes the Marxists divested Namboodiris of their land holdings which the upper-caste Syrian Christians, who dominate trade, bought up fairly quickly. The Hindu reformer Narayana Guru also played a monumental role in changing the “madhouse.

    Very interesting. Seems like the majority of indian over-achievers are non-brahmins after all.

    Yeah, and? The Bangalore IT industry has a highly disproportionate number of Mallus – mainly because, thanks to unenlightened economic policy, there is little IT industry in the state. And the vast majority of them will be Nairs, Menons, Ambalavsis – all non-Brahmins. Namboodiris are nowhere to be seen. But they all quasi-married through “sabandham” marriages in any case, so the communities are mixed.

  45. Notice she got her degree from Yale, not Surinaranayanurthysrivegatachalapthy Enginreeing (But not really) college. How culturalyy Indian is that??????????????????????

    Stop passing everything as Indian without proper research.

    Chris

  46. Stop passing everything as Indian without proper research.

    She went to madras christian college and IIM, I believe Kolkata. research indeed…

  47. Vinod Dham, Vinod Khosla, Sabeer Bhatia Very interesting. Seems like the majority of indian over-achievers are non-brahmins after all.

    All this while there’s high-class decisions by Murty, setting an example simply unheard of in Indian industry.

    I can’t but speak about my experience, having worked with both Vinods and an industry associate of Sabeer’s. It is a shame their names are being misused only to take down other successful people and that by ignoramuses of the Shazam kind.

    Vinod Khosla: credit where due, remarkable accomplishments and certainly an over-achiever. His successes dwarf his misses (remember Excite, Go, Asera, and talk to Raj Singh about how Cerent and Siara were miraculous saves off Fiberlane, almost killed by Vinod) Vinod Dham: not even in the same league. Some credit for leading the Pentium effort but hey, would you want to also credit him with the infamous Pentium arithmetic? Remember, you are talking about Intel and it didn’t skip a beat with his departure. His successes following Intel aren’t anywhere near Khosla’s repeated successes (that dwarf his failures: Excite, Go, …) Sabeer: A one-hit wonder that is more due to market timing, Internet bubble, and MSFT wanting to take on NSCP. Track what he did since: Arzoo. What next?

    The audacity to compare a Sabeer with an Indra or Murty simply speaks of Shazam’s ignorance and depravity of character. Instead of just dropping names why don’t you get yourself off your ass, stop bragging about Mallus (which used to be a derogatory term now being used with pride by certain Malayalis of the risible kind; guess they ought to act in the movies with black americans of the street/gangster kind that use the N word proudly) and stop throwing your filth on others around you. The under-privileged and Malayalis you speak for would be ashamed of you and your ilk.

  48. It seems Shazam’s desire to score one over the “Brahmins” is leading him to adopt Pentium arithmetic (and logic), not what was the legacy of Indian math and logical heritage (regardless of whether it was Saha’s or anyone else).

    And Risible seem to have an itch to claim all as “Mallu”. Perhaps he ought to realize that same pattern is what leads Malayalis, as wonderful people as they are, to seek employment across the border in Tamil towns like Coimbatore or Madras, as well as further outward from Bombay to the Gulf. If they were so damn good as Risible claims, how come they haven’t been able to come even within shouting distance of the accomplishments of the other southern states in developing industry, reducing suicide rates, and capitalizing on the bounty of God’s own country? Perhaps God gave them the land and took away what’s between their ears, and did the opposite with the folks from Marwar and Chettinad. Anwer that, Risible, before mucking around with your “Mallu” flag.

  49. Hawa Hawai and Floridian – I think it’s probably even less acceptable for desis in India to do nonprofit work (I’m desi-raised and came to the States later), and desh-desis are more likely to work for UN and World Bank orgs than community based orgs, it’s the American-born desis who do community work. The folks I know in NYC run youth services, some do educational programs for new migrants, etc. (am not a New Yorker myself, though have spent a lot of time there).

    In desiland the people who do AIDS, poverty and more grassroots social service work (and it tends to be a mixed bag, spanning aunties running sewing classes for the daughters of nieghbourhood servants, to street children programs that do excellent job training) are likely to be from relatively privileged backgrounds, and mainly women whose husbands rake in the $ with their corporate jobs. This doesn’t mean that some of them don’t do serious, good work, but just that it’s rarely a “career” in the same way it is for American desis. The real committed NGO types who don’t go straight from their social work to corporate cocktail parties tend to be sneered at as “jholawalas.” I frequently got comments from fellow desis in the US when I chose to do NGO work rather than banking, along the lines of “oh you must be supported by your family, lucky you can do that” as if it was some sort of princessy indulgence rather than a conscious principled decision to live on a low income to do what I loved. NGO work is a Real Job for many people, Meenakshi, it is not a “privilege.” It just requires trade-offs. I know some extremely smart people with PhDs in Bombay and Bangalore who gave up much more lucrative opportunities for social sector jobs, microcredit work and the like, and they have families to support too, they just don’t live banker-corporate lifestyles.

    The families of NGO-desis, who usually are well-educated and relatively well-off themselves, don’t like to talk very much about them 😉 Like I said, especially if they are male, then it’s a real disappointment, because you’re supposed to not only live in a nice home with a car and driver but also be able to give a woman of your social class the kind of lifestyle she was used to.

  50. You need to sit down, Standup; for you are embarassing yourself. Why all this hatred for mallus and punjabi khatris? It wasn’t them who categorized you tamil brahmins as untouchables and sudras, it was the Namboodiri Brahmins. I dont hear a peep from you TamBrams against the Namboodiris who saw you as fake brahmins, or the Jim Crow Americans who treated TamBram Chandrashekhar as a black pariah. Why? Is it because you agree with them?