A cook for the Ramaswamys

For some months now, S had felt that it was time to get his eldest daughter Sumangali married. Sumitra- his wife – had been thinking that way for some years! After all, she felt, Sumangali is now twenty-six; it¹s time for her to settle down. And there¹s Urmila to worry about, too! Sumangali¹s opinion didn¹t count for much: she was a docile girl, good at her studies – she had an M.A. degree in Mathematics- and an excellent cook, and she was willing to go along with whatever her parents suggested.

In India to secure a groom  for their daughter  through the traditional route – friends, relatives, the family astrologer, ads in the newspaper – would have  taken a lot of time. But the Internet, as is well-known, changes everything. Sivakumar was not techno-savvy: he was the Administration Manager in a Bangalore factory, and found computers intimidating. He was happiest dealing with pen-and-paper stuff. And it was  only at his friend Raman¹s coaxing that Sivakumar actually visited that site: shubhavivaha.com¹ while surfing the Net at  Adiga¹s  Cybercafe. And on their opening page, blinking at him like a god-send, was this advertisement.

The advertisement for a bride was enticing:   Jayaprakash: 29 years, 177 cm, caste no bar, software engineer, USA¹. You clicked on the hyperlink, and all the information was available. There was his photograph, a brief bio-data, and even his horoscope.

Born: 19 July 1975.  Complexion: Fair. Height: 177 cm.,  Presently employed with Emperion Software, Santa Clara, U.S.A.  Birth Star: Kettai, Rasi:  Viruchigam Rasi. Details of his parents and his immediate family were given too. Father: retired Professor. Mother: Principal of a School. Sister: married. And best of all, the parents  lived in Bangalore,too. Which made things easy for Sivakumar.

As Administration Manager , Sivakumar was not given to putting things off: shubasta sheegram  was his motto, as he was fond of saying. He believed in quick decisions, and swift follow-up. Within minutes of seeing the ad, he had called up Jayaprakash¹s father. A meeting was arranged, and before the month was up, horoscopes had been matched, e-mail had been exchanged, and the match had been finalised.

Jayaprakash planned to visit India in October, and he had about three weeks leave. An astrologer was consulted, and the best muhurta in October was selected. Jayaprakash was advised to time his vacation accordingly.

Sumangali was excited.  There were so many opportunities in the U.S. for computer people, Jayaprakash told her, via e-mail.  He urged her to join a course and acquire some computer skills. She decided to learn Java, C++ – whatever was in vogue…

Jayaprakash came back to an India that changed a lot since his college days. Everywhere, in Bangalore at least, the talk was of software, and of start-up ventures that had zoomed out into dotcom space. The newspapers were full of advertisements for software people.   H1-B visas assured! Contact us now!¹ seemed to be the constant refrain. The roads, narrow as ever,  were crowded with cars and traffic jams – something unheard of when he was last here – were an everyday affair. Multi-storeyed buildings were mushrooming, and the offices -he visited some of his friends – were swank, and boasted of the latest facilities.

The marriage was a well-attended affair. The bride and groom lost track of the number of hands they had shaken. Everyone commented on Jayaprakash¹s American accent. Some of Sumangali¹s friends teased her about how she had picked up the accent very quickly, and that too, without ever going to America….

Sunil ran his recruitment agency from a one-room office in J.P.Nagar. He was always on the look-out for likely candidates for U.S. placements.  A single foreign placement -even at a lowly level – meant a small fortune for him. He had recently   tied-up¹ –  as he liked to think of it – with Equine Software Systems of Santa Clara, U.S.A.  Fred Wilkins, Vice-.President (HR) of ESS had visited Bangalore recently. He had met the gentleman at the Shilton hotel, and they had long and intensive discussions. ESS was under pressure to recruit the best people, he said. And added that his job was on the line, unless he managed to hire thirty of the best-and-brightest before the month was up. FW had met up with about ten other recruiting agencies, and signed up with all of them…

When he heard about JP from his wife Gowri – who was Sumangali¹s friend – he decided that here was an ideal candidate for ESS. He used his persuasive skills to convince JP that ESS was the company of the future. He  set up a tele-interview for him, and before he knew it, JP had got a new job in addition to a new bride…

ESS offered terrific perks. First off, there was the BMW offer. The first twenty people to sign up would be given BMW¹s Z3 cars, free! Then, there was the referral program, imaginatively called,   GetPeople¹ – which promised $1000 for every candidate hired through an  employee¹s reference. And, there was the   Getaroof¹ programme, which promised $10,000 for a down-payment on a house. And to top it all, there were stock-options on offer- ESS had a very generous scheme, especially for the early recruits. JP was astonished – he had heard rumours of start-ups offering the moon, but he had never given this talk much credibility. But now he knew it was true. He had talked to Fred Wilkins, and he had given him the real, inside story of what was going on at ESS…

The people behind ESS were whiz-kids, FW said. And the venture capitalists had fallen over backwards trying to be the chosen ones to finance them. The business plan had been worked out to the last cent. Sales would go through the roof. Staff strength would rise from just ten on-board now to over eight hundred before the year was out. They were recruiting aggressively, and to be part of the company that would be a star-performer on the NYSE in six months was not an opportunity to be thrown lightly away…

ESS seemed so different from staid Emperion, his present employer. They had hired him back in   98 when the Y2K scare had started to take root, and he had somehow managed to hang on to his job, although they had already laid off many people who had joined with him. JP was pleased that his marriage had brought him luck…

Sunil was happy. His payment – the first that he received in US dollars – came through one month after JP had joined ESS.  He praised FW, and recommended ESS to everyone he met. And although he didn¹t succeed in placing any more candidates with ESS, the dollars kept him going for a long time…

Sumangali was very pleased. She thought that she had brought JP luck. Although she was sad that she would have to wait for a few months to get her visa, she didn¹t mind. She resolved to work harder than ever at her C++ course. In a few months time, by the time the visa came through,  she would have the qualifications required by ESS, and who knows, they might offer her a job, too…

Back at Santa Clara, JP found that everything that FW had said was true. He did get his Z3, and the money for the down payment on the house. And he had put in referrals for several of his friends back in Bangalore. And they did offer him stock-options. And Sumangali joined him a few months later, as soon as she got her visa.
Everything seemed just right, and perhaps they could think of a baby now…

But the work at ESS seemed nothing sensational – the same kind of projects, the same kind of coding work that he had done for many years, the same time-and-cost overruns. There were periodic meetings with the top management – all youngsters like him, except for FW, who was in his forties. FW usually stole the show at these meetings, with his evangelistic zeal, and his vision of the future for ESS.  At the end of these meetings, everyone felt refreshed, and felt that their fears regarding the future were groundless. Perhaps, they felt, as they reassembled for work, there was something that they had missed…

The  collapse when it came was catastrophic. One day, early in September 2001,  ESS share values were stratospheric – before the week was over, the stock was worth a few cents and everyone wondered what the Monday would bring…

What the Monday brought was a first round of pink-slips. Fifty employees – the newest recruits – had been told to go. And rumour had it that FW had put in his papers too. JP was shaken – he had never imagined that life could be so difficult. Although his name was not on the first list, he was sure that his turn wasn¹t very far away.

The Z3 had to be sold. They had to move out from their house in a decent suburb to a seedy flat in a run-down district. The baby was put on   hold¹. JP and S scanned the   Wanted¹ ads desperately. No one seemed to be recruiting any more, and their IT skills seemed totally useless. The   Santa Clara Courier ¹ was full of ads – but not for IT people. What caught Sumangali¹s eye was the ad for a cook: ³Wanted South Indian Vegetarian Cook. Excellent pay for the right candidate. Contact B.Ramaswamy….²

When Raman asked Sivakumar about how his daughter was doing in the U.S.A., and enquired about  how it felt to be on the way to being a grandfather, he only smiled. How could he tell him that his son-in-law was now unemployed in the Silicon Valley  and that Sumangali  was a cook at  the Ramaswamys ?