The Poor Little Rich Kids

He is all of 23 years old. Flashing a wallet loaded with four credit cards, two of them international, to fit a schedule that includes overseas travel every four months. His wardrobe is weighed down with the latest in designer wear, yet there's an almost apologetic note when he tells you "I need to change my cellphone every six months or else it's boring, isn't it?" His attitude is designed to convey the image of a suave young man, with the world at his feet, but it's finally that faint air of uncertainty that reminds you that for all his bluster, Chinmay Rao is no spoilt rich kid blowing away Papa's indulgence.

Rao is part of that new emerging Indian elite, the awesome software professional, with dough to spare and a swagger that proclaims "I owe the world no dues". Theirs is the quintessential rags-to-riches tale, having traversed a path, often from modest salary-earning homes to the dizzying world of wired wealth. For most of them, it's all in the space of a few years after engineering college. It's pride money, for these IT millionaires have had to work their way through the grind at college and the 24x7 schedules their companies maintain to cash in on those glittering esops. It's guilt-free money in a society where to get rich quick has historically meant getting one's hands dirty.

At the same time, is this all too much, too soon? Even as this set of twenty- and thirty-somethings radically alter their lifestyles to match their burgeoning earnings, there's a certain something in the air that doesn't jell, that eludes understanding, that sticks out like a sore thumb. When K.L. Prashanth realised he hadn't shopped on time for his wife's birthday, the project manager sold 100 of his bluechip esops to drive home a spanking Mitsubishi Lancer to sweeten her up. Many have gifted flats to spouses as anniversary presents and showered younger siblings with cash vouchers of Rs 20,000 and more. It's the revenge of the once-thrifty. After watching parents scrimp and save over a lifetime of hard work, these Net era denizens are hitting back with a show of conspicuous consumption that's often at odds with their persona. And nowhere are the faultlines of this tremor more apparent than in India's IT capital, Bangalore.

Says R. Sridhar, MD, Integrated Brand.-Comm, a brand consultancy outfit: "This city has the highest number of software pros, so instances of extravagant behaviour are also more here." The reigning joke here says it all. That there are only two types of people in Bangalore, those who own Infosys shares and those who don't. Similarly, IT professionals are divided into two groups - those emulating the spartan lifestyles of industry bigwigs, epitomised by .R. Narayanamurthy, Infosys chairman. And those who believe money earned must be spent, grandly. Chips in Rao: "Ma-a-, Larry Ellison, he's some guy, that man knows how to spend money." Awestruck by the famed lifestyle of the Oracle chief, who flies his own fighter jet and maintains extensive Japanese Zen gardens around his California home. Trouble is, balancing a lifestyle influenced by contrasting role models is proving onerous for some in the fraternity.

Says Karl Sequeira, director, Freedom Foundation, a help centre: "It's alarming to note the number of pros in early-20s coming to us for counselling on intoxicant abuse." There are young techies who, in a bid to deny the stress ruling their lives, are taking to mood-altering drugs, a pill to calm down or maybe to pep up in the morning. Argues a senior industry member: "Don't discount the enormous pressure these pros work under - long hours, strict deadlines, the onus of keeping pace with fast-changing technology and, worse still, the loneliness that comes from working at sites far from home for long stretches. " Add to this cocktail access to plush bank balances and dysfunctional behaviour is just a step away.

Says Amar Mehra, systems specialist at an MNC software house: "I've been in this industry for five years now and know I'll be in the US soon. So why do I need to put down roots? Say, I have Rs 50,000 in the bank, I spend it all." On what? "Food, clothes, shoes and cellular bills." The search for the next high, for people who have it all early in life, can take on extreme forms. Says Sequeira: "It alternates between those who have no concept of leisure and those who take to exotic pursuits like flying, something they won't normally do." So that they can further the illusion of actually living the good life, the Indian equivalent of the American dream. Says Kamala Venkateswaran who runs Vishwas, a counselling service for professionals: "These are people with a very high level of financial security coupled with a very low sense of emotional well-being." When it began its free counselling service a decade ago, the 45-60 age group dominated Vishwas' client list. But now the majority of its clients are young techies.

So what's it like, the personality construct of a software pro? Says V. Ravichandar, MD, Feedback Marketing Services, who consults with the cream of the IT industry: "A software pro is a person with ambitious career goals, with a desire for money, not abashed about it and who wants it now." Feedback interviewed techies across 130 firms in Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi and Mumbai to arrive at a snapshot of what drives the IT pro, one with 3 to 8 years of experience. Says Ravichandar: "Our findings threw up the images of people with high self-esteem bordering on arrogance, interested in what the company can do for them and conversely with very fragile egos." The effects of "too much, too soon" are telling on their families. Late last year, the husband of a pro away on project work in the US was arrested for stabbing a friend to death in the family kitchen. The motive: the friend demanded return of the money he had lent.

The emotional poverty in a life suffused with material riches isn't lost on the pros. A favourite item on their e-mail network is a spoof on the life of a young software couple crisscrossing each other across the globe on their way to and out of onsite projects to finally realise that they have met each other once in the first 15 months of their marriage. The techies call the spoof "The Story of Us". Loath to give up plum jobs, the couple find they have spent more than the wife's monthly pay on international calls.

Do their employers have a role to play? Industry members agree the onus is on the employer who, in his focus to retain talent, is slipping up on treating his employees as a total individual. At Infy, Narayanamurthy has inspired the start of a cultural club called Unmeelan. A theme for discussion at its inaugural meet was the contribution of the Indian geek to the society. Asks an industry member: "Why target the pro - are all segments of India's privileged giving to society?" A geek dealing 80 per cent of his time with overseas customers is obviously influenced by the culture of the West where being rich is no reason for a guilt trip. So, his lament is, "why me"?

But in as much as the detritus of unlimited wealth is washing up on his doorstep, pros are being forced into introspection. Says Rao: "Walking out of a pub one night, a beggar stopped me. I was pleasantly high, so I offered him food instead of cash; he ate a dosa and an omelette off a pushcart and the bill was Rs 9. And I had only hundreds in my purse, not one tenner." Lest you think he's being maudlin, Rao corrects you: "It's only when I'm in a good mood that I think of it, that here's someone without Rs 10 to eat a full meal and here's me who has only hundreds in his purse. " It's, as always, when the wheel of fortune turns full circle that those voices within get more insistent.

The Geek Gospel