The World is Flat...

Indeed it is. I read Thomas Friedman's "The World is Flat", which is one of the most fascinating books of our century. It is as the cover says, A brief history of the twenty-first century. A century that has just started but one that will shape the world for the future. We all know the forces of flattening because if you are reading this post then you are part of the flat world. Its the reason why you have broadband in your house or the reason why Indians are earning more than ever or the reason why Indians living anywhere in the world are connected to their roots. We have all been either part of these forces or heard about them. Outsourcing, offshoring, blogging, wikipedia, googling and the list goes on. If you are part of any of this then you are living in a flat world. But these are just the dots that we know about, the book does a good job of connecting these dots and painting us a picture, how these are all interconnected. Its one book that every person of the flat world should read to integrate the rest of the unflat world with itself.

I will not review the book but answer two questions that Friedman asked everyone who he came in touch with, Where were you when the world got flat? When did you notice you live in a flat world?

I was on my way to Canada when the world got flat. The world got flat in 2000, when I had just finished my degree and could not find job in my Automobile field and thus applied for Universities in Canada and Germany. I eventually choose Canada but I had 6 months before I could start my degree and so to pass the time, I joined one of the first call centers in Delhi. I was working with a subsidiary of K-Mart, an American retail giant. At that time I didn't knew I was stepping onto a flat world. I left that company and moved to Canada. It was around 2001 when most of the world went flat but it went unnoticed from where I was because I was adjusting to a new country, a new lifestyle, a new University and new friends. Next year also passed in a blur because I was working 8 hours a day, studying and sleeping the rest 16 hours. I didn't had time to notice the world around me.

It was in 2003 I realized that I was living in a flat world. I came across a blog and read how anyone can create their own content and publish it to the rest of the world. I started blogging but remained anonymous. I would mostly write reviews of books and change my blog everytime I wrote a new post. I would get some comments but that was the extent of it, until I wrote about a murder case of an Indian girl in Canada. Suddenly, people from all around the world came and commented and wanted to know what happened and so I started updating the same blog. That blog ended with the case but I had just realized the power of blogging and community. I then wrote another review of the book of short stories, Seventeen Tomatoes and kept updating it and rest as they say is history. I made some amazing group of friends from all over the world and we all blogged on number of issues but I think that was just the beginning. As a blogger I have now matured from just writing everyday happenings of my life for strangers to collaborating with my blog-friends on personal, social, professional and political issues. I sorted out the people I connected with and have made life-long friendships and some beautiful relationships.

Ironically, a shift happened when I left India, suddenly the world realized that India is a place to be. I started hearing a lot about outsourcing and the anger among American public about it. But for me outsourcing is a great opportunity. The NRIs that came before me and worked in traditional jobs in US/Canada/UK had no future back home but for me there is an opportunity to work anywhere in the world including India. Infact, if you had asked me 4 years ago, "Will you go back to India and work?", I would have said, "I prefer not to" but if you ask me the same question today, I will say "I hope to" . And that's what flat world has done. It has given Indians and Chinese opportunity to work from their own country and still earn all the benefits of Western world. Although, I don't think lines for US visas has decreased but it certainly has made it less desperate.

One theory that Friedman has proposed makes lot of sense to me. The theory says that any two countries that share a global supply chain will never go to war against each other. I had already thought about this before reading this book and I think this theory gives a chance to India to improve relations with Pakistan. Currently, all seems well between the two sides but it can destabilize anytime with some random act. I think the only way to prevent future wars is to intermingle the two societies and India could and should take leadership in this. I envision a day when Pakistani students can apply for IITs or any Indian University, a day when Hindi movies are played in every Pakistani theater, a day when Pakistani cricket players can play in Indian clubs like in county cricket, a day when going to Nanaksar (a sikh pilgrimage where Guru Nanak Dev was born) is as easy as going to Amritsar. All this will do is make people realize that we all can gain from each other much more than lose by fighting. I think the current status quo is not very stabilized because even though India has progressed a lot to create world-class companies, Pakistan has not progressed as much because of their political scenario (or non-political scenario). It is in India's favor to have a stabilized and progressive Pakistan that gives hope to its people like India is giving. All this is highlighted in the last chapter of the book where Friedman talks about India and how even though India has the second highest Muslim population in the world, it is the most stabilized nation with most progressive Muslims. This is because India's democracy and secularism gives hope to people and hope is a powerful thing that can make the rest of the unflat world flat.