She lives with her husband and two daughters in Fairfax county, Connecticut

Amardeep, if you had wanted to do a thorough job on this post you would have included pictures or the Friendster profiles of said daughters (assuming they are of marriageable age of course).

Hey, I did Google the daughter's name to see if anything came up (nothing). But anyway, they're probably too young for you, dude! ;-)

or preferring mango lassi to martinis

I gave Ganesha to a few people around my office, they still have it displayed.
Of course, the non-brown folks needed explaining on why a Jain Man worships Ganeshas....

"Secondly, you don’t have to sell yourself out and tell everyone your name is “Bob” if it’s really Balwinder"

Unless you're in the entertainment/film industry.

"Nooyi attends PepsiCo board meetings in a sari; for she believes the corporate world appreciates people who are genuine"

This is not as noble sounding as it seems. While this woman gets her due props from me, I think there's a chance she can be paraded around as the ethnic showpiece, with pepsi claiming "oh look, see how diverse we are."

This is not as noble sounding as it seems. While this woman gets her due props from me, I think there's a chance she can be paraded around as the ethnic showpiece, with pepsi claiming "oh look, see how diverse we are."

She's running the company though, its not like she Vice President of Cultural Relations. Props to her, originally from Chennai!

Very nice story. One point I would like to make about her background is the south indian cultural aspect (i am a northie myself). In my experience, 80% high-powered indian women in the US that I have met are from South India, Maharashtra and Bengal. But predominantly southern in cultural origin (maybe 50%+ of professional women with serious careers).

Anyone else with a similar experience?

One does not get to become the CEO of a company to be its ethnic showpiece.

Regards,

Congratulations to Indra... I only hope she rectifies the pesticide allegations against Pepsi and not give the Pepsi detractors the finger... ;-)

The original desi power-mom.

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

In my old life in M&A, we sat across the table from her a few times when they considered buying Snapple from our client. Extremely smart, poised and candid person - and I assure you she has no golf game. Couldn't have happened to a better person.

Congrats Indra - now how about that Indian Pepsi-cide issue? :-)

she's not a sellout, and sticks to her roots..

shabash nooyi..shabash :)

But what does Senator Allen have to say about a macaca woman taking over this headline American company? Someone please ask him at a press conference. Maybe he'll say Pepsi should be renamed Macaca-Cola.

Great post, amardeep. "acculturate without assimilating" That's a great line. Can I borrow it?

Macaca Cola, that's funny.

Slogan: My Kaka drinks Macaca-Cola

While I disagreed with some of her Columbia - there is no denying that she is kicking serious butt in the corporate world. She saw the future was moving away from fizzy sodas and into health drinks and juices, and now Pepsi has a greater share value than Coca Cola.

Now - how about another Gurinder Chadha film on how Indian culture holds women back?

This is not as noble sounding as it seems. While this woman gets her due props from me, I think there's a chance she can be paraded around as the ethnic showpiece, with pepsi claiming "oh look, see how diverse we are."

*roll eyes* the horrors! a *chance* that you'll be offended.

"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."

great points. why should the fact that she decides to wear a sari (of her own free will, i assume, without being forced to do so by pepsi) to a board meeting arouse suspicions of exoticization/paraded as an ethnic showpiece etc? if a western female employee of an indian company or the western head of an indian company wears western office wear to a board meeting would we think of them as exoticizing their culture or being paraded as an ethnic showpiece? this idea that the sari or any other piece of clothing, western or otherwise, should be confined only to certain cultural (functions)/geographic boundaries and being seen as "abnormal" outside those settings is strange. it reminds me of the lady who once said in a very patronizing tone that while the sari was glamorous, it was best left in india. meanwhile it's perfectly ok for western wear to swamp the world and be seen as the "normal" standard.

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.

I admire Indra Nooyi not only for being able to balance an incredibly demanding, time-consuming, and high profile career, but also for having the guts to shatter notions of propriety when she makes statements like she did in her Columbia speech. Among all the roles she plays, she takes the time out to show to the world, literally, that she is a fast thinker/talker, on all fronts, including politics--which I find is inspiring and rarely ever found in female Indian role models.

Now - how about another Gurinder Chadha film on how Indian culture holds women back?

LOL. Dear God, No.

Hats off to Indra for this fantastic rise to the top. Attending her second career interview and all the Pepsi Board meetings in Saree is like 'wow' - how could she pull that off. This is an eye opener for many. I think Pepsi's corporate setup and its diversity need to be applauded. Hakoona makaka.

Another high flying FOBini in the corporate world is Padmasree Warrior - Chief Technical Officer, Motorola.

I met her once, she was wearing a saree. She has a full family with a kid.

"acculturate without assimilating" That's a great line. Can I borrow it?

Pagla, glad you liked the phrase, though I'm sure I probably stole it from something or other I read on immigration back in grad school or whatever.

She saw the future was moving away from fizzy sodas and into health drinks and juices, and now Pepsi has a greater share value than Coca Cola.

Yes, her getting promoted to CEO is clearly a reward for the two big events she was involved with -- the spinning off of Pepsi's fast food operations, and the acquisition of Tropicana, Gatorade, etc. It's by no means an "affirmative action" move.

One question I have, though, is why the current CEO is stepping down.

Another high flying FOBini in the corporate world is Padmasree Warrior

What a beautiful name.

It's by no means an "affirmative action" move.

my understanding is that AA hires usually get shunted off into PR & HR, and never have any chance of making it to CEO. they exist to beef up the numbers for audits is all.

Amardeep:
Reinemund retired and she took over.

where did this talk of an affirmative action move come from - what's to discuss? Nooyi's track record there has been VERY public for over a decade.

ROI got her where she is - when we negotiated with her, she hit hard, asked tough questions, held her ground and stung, but with a smile like your favorite auntie.

PS - affirmative action is like an ivy-league degree w/ high GPA, etc. it may get you in the door, but the rest is up to you to fend for and rise up the ladder (with the exception of many bloated, inertia-laden companies).

so can we officially call the glass ceiling a myth?
Remember, affirmitive action and quotas are not expected to hurt the brightest or help the dumbest; they affect the middle class.
go indira, yet another sugar momma!

where did this talk of an affirmative action move come from

affirmative action puts a stigma over the achievement. everything has costs.

Kudos to Indra (nee Krishmamurti) Nooyi and her family. What a pleasure to see accomplished women of Indian origin scale corporate peaks and reach the top! And remaining authentic to her Tamil Brahmin roots that she was exposed to and chose to retain all the way through. Carnatic music, temple visits, veggie-dom, puja rooms, etc.

Padmasree Warrior, an IIT-D and Cornell graduate (Chem E), is another to watch in the years ahead. On Corning's board of directors, ...

AFter twenty+ years in Silicon Valley, how can I not mention the most remarkable woman of Indian origin in high tech? Folks, ahve you heard of Jayshree Ullal at Cisco? You can exchange Indra's script for Jayshree's and it will read similar page for page, word for word, except that she is very understated and not as well known outside the world of computer networking where she is a goddess. Authentic, an absence of pretensions, a world-class manager and operations executive, a loving mother of two talented daughters, the friend to have around you as a bunker companion, funny, personal, empathetic...

What's common across all three: remarkable parents that encouraged them a lot, supportive families, high standards applied within their families and in their interactions with the outside world. All of them are of South Indian origin and I'm sure there are plenty others, including Naina Lal Kidwai, from the rest of India to keep up the flame for Indian women professionals.

Fifteen years ago there were very few managers or executives of Indian origin in the business world. Today, we have big name role models including Arun Sarin, Indra Nooyi, Padmasree, Jayshree, Naina Lal, ...

>All of them are of South Indian origin

I meant to say: All three are of South Indian origin--I wonder what explains the high presence of South Indian women in the tech world--and I'm sure...

My biz prof told us Pepsi's response to these allegations was that the pesticide laws haven't take affect yet, and all processed foods in India contain pesticides, so why should Pepsi change their mfr. processs. But I've been trying to find a website or news article where Pepsi said that, and I haven't found any...I'll ask him about it at class tonight (6-9pm yuck)

3 ain't statistically sigificant.

to be specific, my impression aligns with pragma's. but i need more data.

One can acculturate without assimilating

This was a great point. The lesson is never to surrender your soul, your identity to those who hold the power and would like you to change, in this case the celto-WASP american. Being an american citizen is not an excercise in emulation of the WASP, least not in my book.

"why should the fact that she decides to wear a sari (of her own free will, i assume, without being forced to do so by pepsi) to a board meeting arouse suspicions of exoticization/paraded as an ethnic showpiece etc?"

Never said she was forced, but its still an ethnic/nonstandard style of dress. There's a definite potential there, but as she's an exec tucked away in some board room, it's probably not as much as I had originally guessed. But it's surely done in the case of Night Shyamalan for example, his monstrous last name is kept on as an ethnic eye-catcher, production companies would never let it fly unless they could play off the "oh wow scary movie, by that guy with the cool sounding name" sentiment.

"it reminds me of the lady who once said in a very patronizing tone that while the sari was glamorous, it was best left in india. meanwhile it's perfectly ok for western wear to swamp the world and be seen as the "normal" standard.

I never said it was OK, just saying that's how it is.

Apu_is_innocent

In my old life in M&A, we sat across the table from her a few times when they considered buying Snapple from our client

TH Lee? Just curious.

I had a desi friend at my old firm who use to wear saris to client meetings too, I thought it was great and she looked gorgeous.

There's a definite potential there

so? just because god could exist doesn't mean he does exist. the possibility of evil does not imply that the reality of evil.

there's a certain type of race fixator who will complain that a corporation (fill-in-the-blank) is 'lily white' when white, and 'tokenizing and exoticizing' when it has some color. no win situation in the face of the hand-wringer's compulsion.

"I never said it was OK, just saying that's how it is."

i agree.

but what do you mean by his monstrous last name is kept on? why wouldn't it be up there for all to see? that's his real name and he's the director. or are you saying that he wouldn't get any movies made if his name wasn't "monstrous" and that the sole reason he gets to make movies is because of his unusual-to-americans last name?

In #7, Al Beruni asked: ...80% high-powered indian women in the US that I have met are from South India, Maharashtra and Bengal. But predominantly southern in cultural origin (maybe 50%+ of professional women with serious careers).

My observation based on twenty-five years in tech leads me to agree. High tech (software, systems, networking...), medicine, finance, academia seem to be areas with a high presence of South Indian professional women. In my opinion, here's why. Please excuse me if the following seem too sweeping as I can't avoid generalisms in discussing this :-)
a) those industries place a premium on knowledge, problem solving, results. Education gives someone an edge in all three and South Indians generally place a high(er) premium on education.
b) Role models. The girls just did what they saw their uncles, brothers, cousins do: become proficient in high tech, start/co-found a company, rise up the ranks, etc. And their parents encouraged the girls because the males in the family succeeded/did well and the professions were "safe, respectable, ..."
c) Lack of alternatives. Starting a business in India historically required a lot of capital; succeeding in Indian business meant you had to be part of the family that owned the business (except in say the Tatas and other firms). Lacking that the South Indians forged elsewhere. What's noteworthy is the IT industry didn't require a lot of capital to start a company. That enabled Murty and his team to start InfoSys and there are innumerable others that followed suit.
d) This is a critical one. Modify all of the above to mean "South Indian Brahmin" for it's the (Tamil/Palakkad/etc.) Brahmin women that have a large presence in the mentioned industries. Other communities tend to direct their professionally-oriented women toward family businesses so we don't get to see them elsewhere. Contrarily, Brahmins have to get out and work, e.g., in the service industries. They had to be flexible and command better interpersonal skills to get along with a diverse crowd at work. They found critical mass within their own families, extended families, and social circle to reinforce and support their success. All while not ignoring Carnatic music, idly/sambhar, visits to temples, Suprabhatams in the morning :-)

My two cents...

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”.

I think the whole story is really great and I admire her achievements, but (yes, there had to be a but), the above excerpt just doesn't gel with me. I know it takes a village, or an extended family, or a flock of nannies, but not the employees of a major corporation, to raise a child.

And please, before anyone jumps on me, I'm not implying that she's a bad Mom or anything like that, she sounds like a terrific woman with her head and heart both in thr right place, so I'm guessing she's a good Mom too. It's just that it rubs me the wrong way, like someone higher up than you at work asking you to get their dry cleaning.

HMF, I agree with Whose God is it anyways -- what you're saying is a little paranoid.

If Bobby Jindal ever becomes president (unlikely, I know -- bear with me), by the same logic you could say a) he only got there because he calls himself "Bobby" instead of "Piyush," and b) "they" let him keep his last name, "Jindal" because it sounds "exotic."

The simple truth is that most people who succeed at the level of a Shyamalan or a Nooyi do so because they are immensely talented, driven people. There is no conspiracy either helping them or hurting them. Some people are a-holes about Indian names (Macaca, anyone?), but the goal is to rise above it.

Insipiting stuff. She is a woman of substance, like Femina Miss India :)

Wantok - TH Lee? Not sure I understand your question. TH Lee was one of the people looking at buying Snapple, along with Pepsi, but Cadbury bought it from us in the end.

To Indra Nooyi's credit, she recognized the limitations of Pepsi's distribution, wrt a specialty distribution play like Snapple. Quaker Oats famously f--cked up their purchase of Snapple, but she ain't one to go out like that.

The woman is a real visionary in packaged goods/consumer and really knows the numbers and distribution realities. I am not worthy...

PS - Pragma, add Radha Basu to your list of top shelf indian women execs (plus the desi MD who runs the cancer drug co. - name?).

PPS - razib, you are usually on it, but per #38, what on earth are you talking about sometimes? please write more clearly/completely - or optimize your blogosphere commitments for quality over quantity.

razib, you are usually on it, but per #38, what on earth are you talking about sometimes? please write more clearly/completely - or optimize your blogosphere commitments for quality over quantity.

there is a certain element which will always try to spin a "brown person oppressed by the man" angle. the facts don't really matter, oppression is a given. in this case, the oppression is potential, but whatever.

I just wanted to say thanks for the great post! I really enjoyed reading about Indra's journey to the top. I have to admit that I didn't know much about her before. But now I definitely have a better idea of who she is and why she's an important role model.

"But what do you mean by his monstrous last name is kept on? why wouldn't it be up there for all to see? that's his real name and he's the director. or are you saying that he wouldn't get any movies made if his name wasn't "monstrous" and that the sole reason he gets to make movies is because of his unusual-to-americans last name?"

No, I'm not claiming exclusivity. I'm saying his name is used by disney, warner, et al as a selling point for his films, it's kind of like cream on the top, so to speak. It's a weird phenomenon actually, I think it sort inverts at some point.

If you're a small fish in whatever business (but I think it's heightened in the film/media biz, where image & marketing is key) then youre expected to shunt your culture, tow the line, assimilate completely... but once you reach a milestone point, or a point of any kind of power in the public eye, then the powers that be will milk the cultural background if it sells. For example, they'd never do it for African culture because, the powers that be were responsible for destroying, at least a part of it.

So could pepsi sell more cans by having a high ranking indian in a sari? Probably not, well perhaps to India, but they can definitely boast to the business community about how diverse and committed they are to being "color blind"

Pragma:

There are too many stereotypes in your Post 40. Stereotypes are OK in jokes (e.g. the first paragraph of hairy_d's comment), but for serious analysis, you need to have figures, e.g., how many women are you considering, what communities they belong to and so on.

the problem with brown stereotypes is that they derived from personal experience, and that experience is often highly biased by our origins. so yeah, you number some numbers, confidence intervals, chisquare tests, etc.

Sure, Radha Basu fits in as does Paulette Altmaier (IIT-M, Syracuse grad) and several others I know over the years.

PG Wodehouse: my comments were not the result of a sociological study. I don't have the numbers and breakdown by community nor have I defended this in front of an academic committee to have any basis other than, as Razib said, an "impression". That's the right word: impression. Perhaps there's a PhD somewhere in there for someone else.

I hear ya razib. There is always a challenge for people of color in big corporations, but as Nooyi, and countless others can attest to, you do not let that keep you down. It is incumbent on the minoirty/oppressed (or perceived oppressed) to punch a little harder, work a little smarter, etc.

During my early years on Wall Street, I was automatically dubbed the "numbers/modeling" jock by the clueless middle-level (white) guys - to be clear, women, regardless of color, never did this to me. Clearly, they had NOT seen my verbal scores/grades vs. my math ones. I guess they just sucked so bad at math, I was the proverbial one-eyed man in the valley of the blind! ;-) So, I would intentionally play stupid on quant issues and insist on a seat at the real table - some kneecaps had to occasionally be taken out as a result (one the reasons I left that ratrace to be an entrepreneur - i hate being that brutal person), but i came out on top based on this strategy. I saw too many desi people senior to me whose careers were marginalized to the quant functions vs. real leadership and advancement.

In my interaction with her back then, I sensed the same approach taken by Indra in her career, except she seemed to do it with a true smile - again, i am not worthy.

They found critical mass within their own families, extended families, and social circle to reinforce and support their success

Hmmm. I have to say I am surprised by this comment. My experience of Tam Bram families (married into one) is that they are quite patriarchal (and not they alone), and encourage sons much more than daughters. The tradition of educating daughters is quite common among some other Brahmin communities too, but encouraging and fostering ambition and dynamism? That's rare.

I hear ya razib. There is always a challenge for people of color in big corporations, but as Nooyi, and countless others can attest to, you do not let that keep you down. It is incumbent on the minoirty/oppressed (or perceived oppressed) to punch a little harder, work a little smarter, etc.

i concur.

"No, I'm not claiming exclusivity. I'm saying his name is used by disney, warner, et al as a selling point for his films, it's kind of like cream on the top, so to speak. It's a weird phenomenon actually, I think it sort inverts at some point.
If you're a small fish in whatever business (but I think it's heightened in the film/media biz, where image & marketing is key) then youre expected to shunt your culture, tow the line, assimilate completely... but once you reach a milestone point, or a point of any kind of power in the public eye, then the powers that be will milk the cultural background if it sells. For example, they'd never do it for African culture because, the powers that be were responsible for destroying, at least a part of it."

i can sort of see your point. sort of like if kal penn suddenly became a brad pitt-level star and they used his real name to promote the movies. but that could also be because he had achieved a level of acceptance that made it possible for him to use his full name (and it's unfortunate that in this day and age a person still has to change names against their better instincts to get work), not necessarily because disney/whoever wanted to use his "exotic" aspect as a selling point (although that may also be part of it. but i think these days, unlike in the old studio system, the actors have far more control over their names and how they want to be seen by the public) in shyamalan's case, however, i don't think he ever really changed his name on his work (except from manoj to night, but the "montrous" shyamalan was always there), so i don't see how any film company can be accused of using it as a selling point. scorsese is a selling point, as is spielberg because they make movies that are considered good and make money (and i know that shyamalan has received mixed critical success, but his box office success and the fact that he's the director overrides any other reason, in my opinion for his name being out there. people associate his name with a certain type of movie. why wouldn't they use his name, whether it's shyamalan or jones to promote the movie?)

"So could pepsi sell more cans by having a high ranking indian in a sari? Probably not, well perhaps to India, but they can definitely boast to the business community about how diverse and committed they are to being "color blind""

- i don't get your point. she chooses to wear it to the odd board meeting behind closed doors and on other occasions, mostly seen by other business people, not the general public. so i don't think they are parading her or she is parading herself. it's just a garment, like any other. of course they might pride themselves on having a company in which an originally non-american, non-white woman who is comfortable in her own skin and comfortable across a variety of cultures has risen so high. what's wrong with that? it doesn't take anything away from her achieving this because of her own talents and a corporate culture that allowed her to use her talents to rise to the top. money is everything in the business world, and no matter what her "exotic" appeal or gender, she would never have achieved this without being deserving. if her "exotic" aspects and gender are a bonus, so much the better for the company as long as it didn't compromise on its standards or hers. it's the way of the world.

I know anecdote isn't data, but 4 years ago, as a North Indian of marraigable age, it was very hard for me to find a North Indian girl (espescially in my Sindhi community) who was career oriented, which was one of my top criteria. Even if we did, the girls wanted a well-settled boy (meaning a GC holder/citizen who has bought a house, and has family nearby). Most of the girls were (and I hate to say it) flaky and undecisive. The line that I hated most, which often came out of North Indian girls' mouths:- "If you prefer this, it's ok, if you prefer that, that's also ok. Whatever you prefer"

Most of the time, it was easier to find a stronger and more career oriented woman from the southern community. That's why I married a Tamil Iyer. Yes, I am a chicken-munching Sindhi married to a vegetarian TamBrahm. Wonder what will our kids look like, eh?.

I'm not saying that all North Indian girls are flaky,and my observations are not a result of some study. They are definetly observations of a lonely desi, so I would encourage you to take that with a grain of salt. Maybe there were some cultural influences that made career-oriented North Indian girls exclude me from their filter. But, going through this arranged marraige thing seriously started making me hope that I could resign from being a Sindhi papad.

Chandi, your experience (marrying into a TamBram family) counts for a lot. Indian families in general are patriarchanl. So, could it be--and I could be wrong at this--that as rare as educating the girls, fostering ambition and dynamism is amongst Indian families the South Indian Brahmins do it just a tad more than others, to account for what we see in the real world? Meaning, for a community as small as say the TamBrams, there is a high presence of their women in the professional world.

Razib, sure a larger sample size would help. Going by impressions for now in my experience I'd say there aren't a lot of Indian women executives in tech, the few there are clearly identifiable, and about 50%+ of Indian women executives in tech are of South Indian origin. When the numbers aren't large, I guess naming a few is sufficient to wonder if there is a pattern.

Al Beruni's query--what accounts for the high presence of successful South Indian professionals?--has intrigued me for long. I'd love to hear theories, hypotheses, even impressions to explain that:-)

Razib, sure a larger sample size would help. Going by impressions for now in my experience I'd say there aren't a lot of Indian women executives in tech, the few there are clearly identifiable, and about 50%+ of Indian women executives in tech are of South Indian origin.

you need to compare to the number in the general US pop too.

i wanted there to be a 'poll' of SM readers last spring, but the powers-that-be (minus manish) nixed it. well, there's all this demographic speculation still...i for one, would still like to get a more precise sense of the numbers.

Pragma,
Thanks for your comment, and I would love to hear more comments too. I am a PhD professional and Northie who married a Tam Bram who is similarly educated and has a sister who is also a PhD. So far it follows your pattern. But my husband always got more respect and importance in his family even though his sister was equally educated, older, more experienced, and worked in industry. Part of the reason my marriage is ending is that while my education was respected in my husband's family, any ambition or aspirations I had were not. On the other hand, all the girls in my extended Northie family are highly educated professionals who have always been encouraged to have their own identity. Where were you looking Pagla?

what accounts for the high presence of successful South Indian professionals?

Yea, I dunno. You can hardly see a college class picture absent someone from TamilNaduChennai or Kerala. What is the average IQ given for these group? Has there been any IQ studies specifically targeting this South-S Asia? How do they compare with Lankans?

" i don't think he ever really changed his name on his work (except from manoj to night, but the "montrous" shyamalan was always there), so i don't see how any film company can be accused of using it as a selling point. scorsese is a selling point, as is spielberg because they make movies that are considered good and make money (and i know that shyamalan has received mixed critical success, but his box office success and the fact that he's the director overrides any other reason, in my opinion for his name being out there. people associate his name with a certain type of movie. why wouldn't they use his name, whether it's shyamalan or jones to promote the movie?)"

Actually he kept Manoj, it's the M in M Night Shyamalan, Night is a nickname he earned while at NYU, his middle name is Nelliate, while this is a bit off topic, I'll give you an example of a film company exoticizing him and his last name, the Sci Fi network did a documentary on him, where they implied towards the end that he was declared dead for 14 minutes, and is a ghost or some such crap. Can you imagine them saying spielberg is an extra terrestrial, or james cameron is a robot from the future?

But the studios can choose whether to release his film as "An M. Night Shyamalan" or say just "An M. Night" film for example? Both would achieve the same thing, but they go with the later because time and newsweek magazine can gawk over "that cool new name" It doesn't undermine his talent or whatever, but it's an extra plus point.

You can hardly see a college class picture absent someone from TamilNaduChennai or Kerala. What is the average IQ given for these group? Has there been any IQ studies specifically targeting this South-S Asia? How do they compare with Lankans?

the iq for south asia in the aggregate studies is around the low 80s. see lynn & vanhanen. here's a survey, control-f "india."

RK Khan: IQ levels are not that different amongst or across communities/genders/races. Environmental reinforcement (family support, role models, lack of alternatives, etc.) matters more, I think.

Chandi: Sorry to hear your story. Confirms a patriarchal strain in (some? many?) TamBram families and in some ways, that's not surprising. Your ex's sister's education and accomplishments however seem to also validate this thread. We must remember owing to the near V-shape of the country, there are less South Indians and Tam/Kerala Brahmins are a microscopic minority in the Indian context (and even more so, in the American/world technology industry). What accounts for the high presence of successful south indian brahmin professionals?

Well 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. Mallus rule! You can't go to a tea shop in India without meeting a Nair, or some such thing...

Aslo re Ganesh, Rajat Gupta used to keep a photo of his guru, Swami Vivekananda, in his office when he ran McKinsey. So Nooyi's example isn't singular. People can be what they wan't to be and still rise to the top.

Thanks for your comment, and I would love to hear more comments too. I am a PhD professional and Northie who married a Tam Bram who is similarly educated and has a sister who is also a PhD. So far it follows your pattern. But my husband always got more respect and importance in his family even though his sister was equally educated, older, more experienced, and worked in industry. Part of the reason my marriage is ending is that while my education was respected in my husband's family, any ambition or aspirations

Yup, Yup. And that's exactly why my wife was looking for someone outside the TamBrahm community. She is a driven woman (probably more driven than me.. I'm always telling her to relax), and she knew she would be restricted in a TamBrahm family

On the other hand, all the girls in my extended Northie family are highly educated professionals who have always been encouraged to have their own identity. Where were you looking Pagla?
My parents were intially looking through relatives, and friends. Met some girls that I liked but I didn't meet their expectation, but most of the girls, whose expectations I met, were flaky. Now, the North Indian community is not homogenous, so it could be my family. None of my female cousins are really educated, and got married after doing a semi-serious BA/BCom degree. When I was young, I always felt that girls didn't have ambition, but I am not sure anymore whether their non-ambition is a result of the pecularities of my family, or whether North Indian culture influences girls to leave ambition behind. Even, in Software Engineering college in Bombay, we has 8 girls in a class of 80, and probably 2 or 3 of them had some drive. However, percentage-wise, girls were more driven that guys. Up until my parents started looking for girls, I had the impression that it's my family, but I am beggining to think it's Northie culture

Now Northie culture isn't really homogenous, so it just might be my community.

Every time I see a rabid ethnic fervor for all things Indian, especially among second generation Indians, my paternal instincts for protecting and helping our young take over.

As a first generation Indian whose funny accent and other quaint, old-world habits instantly typecast him as an outsider in the American corporate world, I have had to wrestle with the cultural identity vs. assimilation issue all my life. And this is what I have learned - assimilation is not the same as submission, and in any group, corporate or otherwise, success is awarded to people who can lead, mingle and become a team player. To the extent your sari makes you stick out like an Indian maharani to the average gora, your success in any enterprise involving other humans will be limited. You can always go out and invent a cure for cancer, but if your career goal is to merely head the cancer lab, watch out.

I would bet that Nooyi always showed up for work in a dress when she was anxiously climbing the corporate ladder. In fact I have seen her older photos. Once you have become the CEO, you may be exempt from something as low-level as the assimilative attire criteria. But I assure you she now faces a new set of criteria to become "one of the guys" or "gals.". That's the way it is all over the world, even back in India.

Incidentally, I do speak with some expertise on the subject. Having achieved a little success in the American business world, though not quite on Nooyi's scale, and made a buck or two along the way, I have never felt like a self-effacing, homogenized Indian American. I am as Indian as any uncle-ji you have known, and as American as any boss you might have had in your career.

A word of advice - your place of work doesn't have to be the proving grounds of your culture. Conversely, I am not advising you to disguise yourselves at work either. But work, which almost always involves other humans, is assimilative in nature and rewards those who know how to belong.

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.

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? after all, they don't market scorsese as martin or spielberg as simply steven when it would amount to the same thing. using one's last name, no matter what its origins, is standard practice in most any profession. he obviously wants to be known as m. night shyamalan and that's how he's known. you might as well accuse him then of using his own name as an "exotic" ploy. do you use your last name (assuming it's an "unusual" "monstrous" name) in your daily professional life? if so, can you or the company who hired you be accused of using it for your/their own purposes as an added bonus? if it can happen on a big scale like the entertainment industry, it can also happen on a smaller scale or level.

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.

Topcat:

All communities can quote such examples.

All communities can quote such examples.

the proust of the papuans? :)

look at the brown winners of nobelz in mathematical sciences. the representation is skewed.

All communities can quote such examples.

Surely yes. But since the topic of South Indian brahmins had propped up, these gentlemen deserved a mention. As for me, I being neither a south Indian nor a brahmin.

The question is not whether Tamil Brahmin cultures - I use the plural because the community is not totally homogeneous being divided broadly between the Iyers and the Iyengars - are patriarchal (they are) but whether they are more so as compared to other Indian sub-cultures. The evidence on this is lacking. Anyone have any? Note also that culture is not static, so attitudes have changed considerably and continue to change. Somehow, in Western representations of India, "culture" is often treated as something static and unchanging.

Just to clarify, I am a male from the community myself.

Surely yes.

i just scanned the nobel prize winners in physics for the 20th century. two brownz. both iyers. two points is tiny. but the chance of two iyers in a row when their % in the pop is probably on the order of 0.1% is pretty comment-worthy.

Nobel laureattes CV Raman and Subramanyan Chandrashekhar

Sure, South India has a long, strong culture of education and enlightenment. No doubt. People like Ramanujan are once a century occurences. CV Raman and Chrandrashekhar were related. Chandrashekhar's mother was a serious scholar.

However, let me point out some other Nobel Lauretes from South Asia: Rabindranath Tagore (Bengal), Hargobind Khurana (Punjab), Abdus Salam (an Ahmediya educated in Lahore, undivided India and then later Pakistan), and Amartya Sen (Bengal). It is a mixed bag.

Re: Indian women educated. I know FOBinis from Meerut and other dhura places who quite high up in places like IBM. My mother got her PhD in Chemistry in 1961. She is as North India as it gets. My niece just graduated from Cambridge U. in Computer Science. Her roots are in UP and Delhi.

the iq for south asia in the aggregate studies is around the low 80s. see lynn & vanhanen. here's a survey, control-f "india."

Thnks for the link. It is a bit mysterious, because IQ's of that range would not have a sufficient g to master the complexities of IT and all the engineering dominant professions we find these south-S Asian in. That IQ in the low 80's is, by Lynn et al, typical for ME and Central/South Asia more broadly. Also, the backward people of the central america and the caribbean score around this area. So it is quite a spread from IQ ≥ 80's to the 135-155 IQ's required for complex technical studies. I wonder whether the social class of these south-S Asians is representive of south S Asians more generally?

>>>"Nooyi attends PepsiCo board meetings in a sari; for she believes the corporate world appreciates people who are genuine"

i think that just a bunch of boloney...may be she only goes to board meetings in a sari, but in majority of the pictures on google she is not weating a sari

I wonder whether the social class of these south-S Asians is representive of south S Asians more generally?

american brownz are selection biased. and they aren't regressing back to a mean of 80 for IQ (i checked father-offspring # of years of college for FOBs and their kids). in other words, there is probably some population stratification here. but, there is some evidence from the UK that brownz tend to close some of the gap with whites when in a european environment (from lynn). but this might be selection biasing too, though not as extreme. data from mauritius, south africa and the carribean suggest lower median IQs than whites, though not necessarly (ie south africa) on the g component (there are other components of variation).

i just scanned the nobel prize winners in physics for the 20th century. two brownz. both iyers.

Dude, you missed Abdus Salam. One of the greatest theoretical physicist, even Chandrashelar would agree.

Abdus Salam was an Ahmediya.

You are missing people Satyen Bose of Bose-Einstein Condensate fame.

It is a mixed bag.

Did we mention the enterprising parsi community, a very miniscule population but big shots like the Tatas and Homi Bhabha.

kush, good catch! perhaps he was from a tambram convert family? :)

though seriously, sahel is related to bose.

i mean saheli datta.

RK Khan: IQ levels are not that different amongst or across communities/genders/races. Environmental reinforcement (family support, role models, lack of alternatives, etc.) matters more, I think.

I utterly disagree. I think that large IQ differences exist, they are ubiquitous and highly heritable. Of course, what you mention is counted in the environmental variance, but that variance taken into account doesn't amount to very much really. Twin studies, Family and Adoption studies all point to genes being dominant here, AFAIK.

"Homi Bhabha" What a cool name! Parsis have awesome names. Tata!

Did we mention the enterprising parsi community, a very miniscule population but big shots like the Tatas and Homi Bhabha.

Definitely. Also, Zubin Mehta, Godrejs, Wadias (Bombay Dyeing) fame.

I do not believe in %ages but probably Parsees will come on top.

how the fuck did a post about Indra Nooyi turn into a debate about eugenics, relative ethnic superiorities and last names??

LOL.

The Parsis are a community high in my regard for their philanthropy, progressiveness, and enterprise. They have an acute problem that they have to work out within themselves as their emphasis on intra-community marriages (within a small and shrinking population) has led to debilitating diseases. JRD Tata was a giant amongst all the business leaders I've met/interacted with.

I don't see anyone disputing the high presence of successful South Indian women in the professional world. Given everything else remains the same--patriarchical Indian family system, education and accomplishment in other communities as well, etc.--I ask my question again:

What accounts for the high presence of successful South Indian (esp Brahmin) women in the professional world? This is all the more remarkable given they are a microscopic minority in the Indian/world business environment.

In the context of that specific question it is irrelevant whether Padmasree is a Malayali or a Tamil married to a Tamil/Malayali Warrier or Variyer or the presence/absence of success in other communities.

american brownz are selection biased. and they aren't regressing back to a mean of 80 for IQ (i checked father-offspring # of years of college for FOBs and their kids). in other words, there is probably some population stratification here. but, there is some evidence from the UK that brownz tend to close some of the gap with whites when in a european environment (from lynn). but this might be selection biasing too, though not as extreme. data from mauritius, south africa and the carribean suggest lower median IQs than whites, though not necessarly (ie south africa) on the g component (there are other components of variation).

Thanks razib, exactly what I was curious about.

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.

I don't see anyone disputing the high presence of successful South Indian women in the professional world.

i find it plausible, but i think one issue many of us have is that no robust data sets have been presented. i'm not going to dispute an assertion with a few exemplars. you might be right, or you might be wrong.

IQ levels are not that different amongst or across communities/genders/races. Environmental reinforcement (family support, role models, lack of alternatives, etc.) matters more, I think.

The genes attribute certain characteristics to a race. Like for example
-Jews have probably produced more intellectual thinkers than any other community Einstein, Speilberg et al
-Punjabis are more physically strong etc
Every race has a unique quality, so no question of racism here

how the fuck did a post about Indra Nooyi turn into a debate about eugenics, relative ethnic superiorities and last names??

I agree.

My theory is any community that is small in numbers in it's immediate surroundings will usually do better than the more preponderant groups. Whether it's Sikhs or Parsis in India, Marwaris in Assam, Indians or Jews in America. Many explanations can be given.

My theory is any community that is small in numbers in it's immediate surroundings will usually do better than the more preponderant groups. Whether it's Sikhs or Parsis in India, Marwaris in Assam, Indians or Jews in America.

no.

blacks in america? gypsies in europe? indigenous people in mexico?

jilted_manhood - an excellent point about smaller, marginalized groups...one could argue their "disproportionate" success is related to their relative handicap and place in the predominant surroundings.

apu, which is why dalits are so successful in india?

not trying to be a bitch, but the hypothesis needs many more parameters.

The theory about smaller/marginalized groups doesn't hold up. Innumerable other Indian communities, each small and certainly microscopic in the Indian/world business theater, don't have the presence the South Indian (Brahmin) women do in the professional world.

Perhaps Indra somewhere has hinted or said something about what contributed to her success...and that can be revealing about the South Indian (Brahmin) community....

razib - you are correct, there is more to the story. one needs to look at the history of a given group and what kind of oppression they faced in the past and how they reacted to it. the 3 groups you mentioned did not find the power - political, social or otherwise - but were larger (as a %age of the national pop) than groups like the Parsees, and really kept distinct identities in more than just commerce.

People like the Parsees, who always believe in blending in completely (see Deepa Mehta's "Earth" for an interesting discussion of this) and really had a head start in terms of education, family bonds, etc. (and no history of brutal slavery, family tearing, horrible racism, etc. like the 3 groups you mention), are in a different category.

blacks in america? gypsies in europe? indigenous people in mexico?

Razib, I was going to point those aberrations out in my comment. I also should have been more precise - not just smaller in numbers but also people who emigrated voluntarily ( I would consider persecuted people like Parsis in Iran in this category ) from their native lands. Blacks didn't. On the other hand the recent African immigrants seem to do well in America. The indigenous people didn't emigrate neither are they a minority in places like Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru or even Mexico

What accounts for the high presence of successful South Indian (esp Brahmin) women in the professional world? This is all the more remarkable given they are a microscopic minority in the Indian/world business environment.

Talking specifically about south Indian brahmin sisters, their professional achievements are due to the fact that they have a high literacy rate. Way too many south bramhin women have atleast an undergraduate degree.

just an my understanding is that zoroastrians in iran ("gadirs" or "iranis") are also professionals. not as elite as parsis. and iyers do well in tamil nadu and south india. so the voluntary immigrant hypothesis has only so much explanatory value.

(the chinese who emigrate to most of the world are south chinese, especially fujianese mercantile patrilineages, so the 'voluntary immigrant' hypothesis has to do with selection biasing)

razib, regarding dalits - government policy has helped them through disproportionate representation in Lok Sabha, etc...unlike the poor in America, the poor in India fucking vote - good on them, regardless of the outcome.

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.

Yuck.

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

Yuck yuck yucketty yuck.

risible, interesting....

(these are the kind of things i like to know)

enough of the caste analysis, Macacas !!!
IQ test itself is a biased way of testing.

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.

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.

Itna sannata kyon hai bhai?

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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...

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

Cont'd

What's more interesting is to see what these people went through and the sort of traditions within their families. IQ, traits, etc are crackpottery, not even pseudoscience. So Indra or Vinod Dham aren't what they are today because they are from a certain community. Here's Vinod Dham on grades Dham tells the story of the day he approached professor Joseph Nevin after receiving a "B" in his course. Now that's a lot more interesting.

Shiva,

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

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.

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.

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!)

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.

Sorry that shd have read Your sample isn't right.

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.

Chandi

Count their progeny and their progeny . . .friends...

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.

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.

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?

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.

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...

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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

Stop passing everything as Indian without proper research.

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

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.

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.

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.

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?

A bigot is granted one excuse and given one answer in the hope of helping him out of his bigotry. So, Khazam, to answer your question I take pride in the success of a Chandra and a Saha equally, and don't place either on a pedestal for the reasons you seem to which are caste-based and indicative of your self, your upbringing, and insecurities. The way you go on about Nambudiris and Jim Crows and recall at will innumerable slights or racist acts only confirms the amount of time you have spent in the muck you seem to enjoy wallowing in. That might get you votes in the Indian political scene. Here you will get laughed out, if not shut up.

A quick review of Khazam's postings in this thread confirms his bias and bigotry against "Brahmins" and a proclivity to reach out for trivial examples to counter successful "South Indian Brahmins". His latest only reveals his projection disorder whereby he accuses others of what he engages in. What he needs is a psychiatrist and time at a rehab. Perhaps he will find relief soon. With luck, he may even find a non-(South Indian)Brahmin, perhaps from the very underprivileged community he so stridently represents.

Khazam, the ranks of those Kerala communists you earlier gave kudos for helping Kerala rise abose its petty bias is replete with the very community you diatribe against. Who? Kerala brahmins. And per-capita, there are more Brahmins that have contributed to the uplift of the underprivileged than any other community, save the Parsis. And there are more of the other communities that exploited, and continue to exploit, the underprivileged than the Brahmins. And guess what, people of your ilk are afraid to speak about the latter because you'll get castrated, if not have your throats slit, and you will know that too. So, like a school bully picking on those that are too decent to hit you back you go on and on about the Brahmins.

Tell you what, step out and succeed or help the underprivileged succeed and let's all rejoice in that success. Until then don't piss on the success of others, regardless of whether they are (South Indian) Brahmins or not, because of your failures. Get going, you bigot. For there are innumerable underprivileged well on their way to success helped by the very (South Indian) Brahmins you seem to disparage.

The audacity of comparing a Sabeer with a GNR or Indra, a Vinod {Dham or Khosla} with a Jayshree or even Nobel laureates speaks of your education and knowledge. Razib said earlier about some that have an itch to find bias regardless of the situation. You rank right up there with your apparently deep-rooted bias and prejudices against (South Indian?)Brahmins.

The Standup comedian wrote: "And per-capita, there are more Brahmins that have contributed to the uplift of the underprivileged than any other community". Very funny. How do you uplift the underprivileged if even their shadow or their touch you find polluting?

>>The audacity of comparing a Sabeer with a GNR or Indra, a Vinod {Dham or Khosla} with a Jayshree

So much contempt and jealous hatred for the punjabi khatris, but still not a peep against the Namboodiri brahmins who considered you Tamil Brahmins as untouchables or sudras masquerading as brahmins. I guess this silence means that you acknowledge they were right. Similarly, one of the greatest Tamil Brahmins being humiliated as a black pariah in racist America does not arouse the slightest indignation in you, but comparing non-brahmin luminaries like Vinod Dham and Vinod Khosla to some mediocrity from your caste does! Very strange kind of casteist pride you have.

This conversation has become absurd. You all will have opportunities in the future to resume your mudslinging about caste.