Prashant Govil

Confessions of a Technocoolie Prashant Govil

I am not individually famous, nor ever will be; but as a collective group have captured the imagination of the Indian nation, maybe the world really - a class of software engineers working out of shiny offices in Bangalore, Gurgaon, Mumbai. Mainstay of middle class, urban India. IIT and IIM graduates; Regional engineering college graduates; Sir Chotu Ram college science graduates from Sangle to Delhi; all of us form part of an industry threatening to be the largest contributor to GDP of the country.... This story traces the journey of Hari Prasad Sharma, how "Hari" becomes "Harry"; It's a story about me, my friends, my neighbors, my maternal uncle's son, my paternal aunt's daughter - someone, somewhere called us techno-coolies for the Western world at some point of time.... It starts in Hari's final year of college as an electrical engineer, from his job interview on campus to joining an IT company in India, getting an "onsite" assignment within a year, landing in the US, working with a US client, arranged marriage meetings in India et all - the whole five metre sari: The software industry seen from the eyes of the guy on the frontline - the engineering recruit. How Hari struggles to wonder why someone would hire an Electrical engineer to do software programming, how many of the folks who work in the industry don't do much software programming anyway, a lot of things ...known and unknown. It's just not English and the fact that Indians can 2+2 better than than your average Westerner which has propelled this industry to where it's at - it's the inherent nature to assimilate and absorb change, sheer ambition to "do something", strong family fundamentals which has helped developed this multi-multi billion dollar industry . It is a thesis on the industry - in comedy fiction, of course!