One Never Knows What to Say To the Servants

The Wall Street Journal ^ | Friday, January 16, 2004 | TUNKU VARADARAJAN

[presidio9]

It's not possible to spend an hour in urban India without ingesting life's unfairness. When families subsist in cardboard shelters a few yards from Italianate villas, a visitor must drop the dearly held American pretense that Being Created Equal amounts to equal opportunity and treatment for all. Luck and grueling effort are the main safety nets in places like India, and poor children aren't spared the legion of woes that their parents face daily.

[jonno]

hmmm - I don't know what to say...

[presidio9]

What?? Unless he’s looking through liberal eyes, I don’t have any idea where he’d come up with such an equation. I think he’d be better off to drop his arrogant dot head pretense of intellect

Mr. Varadarajan is vey much a conservative. The idea that every child is entitled to equal opportunity is a liberal construct. If I work harder and am more successful than you, why shouldn't I have the right to send my children to better schools?

[IncPen]

I think the author is marvelling at the ocean of difference between how we Americans view ourselves and how the rest of the world really operates. Extend that idea to Iraq, and the people in the mideast being offered the notion, possibly for the first time in recorded history, that they don't have to live as slaves to a thousand year old tradition of oppression

My post from another thread, regarding cultural differences in the 'outsourcing dilemma':

[A] firm I'm familiar with is having real problems with cultural dissonance. For instance, workers are generally not loyal to their work, and a seemingly rock-solid employee might one day simply not show up (a case I have in mind, a mangager just stopped coming in... his sister needed him to help with a troublesome husband... and he walked away from his job... I'm told this is a common ocurrence).

Also, their society lacks basic underpinnings in many ways. My client is building a new office building there, but the facility is unlike anything in this country. Most construction workers live on the site, sleeping on the scaffolds. Few have shoes. Most have their brought their families, who are living on the site with them. Unexplainable delays are common, taken for granted.

A third thing that comes to mind is the 'tea boys'. The company maintains a staff whose sole function is to fetch tea for the workers. And while the workers may put in a 12 hour day, perhaps 5 hours are actual work... untold hours are wasted 'waiting for tea'.

That's an anecdotal observation, of course, but this idea of India as 'the new Japan' as we were told to fear in the 1980s, well, < yawn >.

[harpu]

This bozo, TUNKU VARADARAJAN, won't be writing or contributing to the WSJ for very long if this is a example of what he (or she) plans to bring to the WSJ readers.

Tunku, let me be the first to say; adios!

[ValerieUSA]

As expressed in both the first and last sentences, the key word of this essay is "unfair." Unfairness is universal. The Indian class system is a shining example of unfairness, but we dare not assume that fairness rules here just because we don't have an official class/caste system in America. Human nature will lead us to categorize and classify ourselves and each other in subtle, yet entrenched, ways that define our culture as a whole as well as individuals. Servitude happens.

[Sloth]

I admit that I don't get the point of this article. Are we supposed to feel bad about class stratification in India? The U.S.? Both? And if so, are we supposed to do something about it or just wallow in intellectual angst?

[presidio9]

Tunku, let me be the first to say; adios!

Mr. Varadarajan has been the features editor of the Journal for quite a while now. He is a Hindu, and he does not look like you or me, but politically you and he have a lot more in common than you think.

[Capriole]

I think the responses to this article demonstrate the point of the author's last few paragraphs: we do have a class system in America and we are terribly, terrbly sensitive about it, so much that we refuse to admit it and get angry whenever anyone discusses it.

[Freemyland]

I think conservatives have an aversion to the term "unfairness", because it is often used by liberal (Democrat and Republican) do-gooders as a pretext for the government taking more of our money and exerting more control in our lives. There are many situations in life that I view as "unfair", for lack of a better word. However, I do not take the next step into believing that the government is competent to rectify all "unfairness."

[ValerieUSA]

You haven't been paying attention, have you? Varadarajan has already established longevity in his field.

[Warren_Piece]

I once heard that in Europe at parties they classify you by asking what your father does for a living, in America they do the same by asking you what you do for a living.

[camas]

this is called the "caste" system.

caste system = the ultimate union system.

[ValerieUSA]

This is not his first job in the field - The Field, not WSJ.

[Quilla]

I can recall reading many wonderful pieces by Varadarajan for at least the last four years. I suspect his relationship with the WSJ is quite safe.

Bless your heart.

[js1138]

I have always considered my housekeepers and nannies to be members of the family. Probably because they are. I shoulda been a democrat.

[presidio9]

A WSJ career that spans a period of 2002 to present

Actually, he became the Features Editor in 2000. But why quibble, right?

[harpu]

Hmmm....let's see: His Work:

1987-1993: Levine Memorial Lecturer in Law Trinity College, Oxford, ENGLAND

1993-1996: Editorial writer, The Times of London, ENGLAND.

1996-97: Madrid, SPAIN correspondent, The Times.

1997-98: NY bureau chief, The (London) Times. (his WIFE works for the NY TIMES, duhhh! probably married his way into the U.S.)

1998-2000: Freelance writer (The Times, Business Traveller, Beliefnet.com (too funny for words), INDIA Today).

2000-2002: Deputy editorial features editor, The Wall Street Journal & chief TV and media critic & writer of the weekly "Citizen of the World" column on OpinionJournal.com (the WSJ's mistake begins!)

2002-present: Editorial features editor, The Wall Street Journal (and, their mistake continues!)

So, good for ol' Tonto, however, were it up to me...I would be proud for this BOZO to be YOUR neighbor!

- 30 -