As they saw India

India has been the destination for the travelers from ages. Many have written their travelogues as they saw India during their time. As usual these travelogues are not free from biases. The travel writers have always seen India with prejudices and pre-conceived ideas what they carried even while they traveled. Hardly any one have done any justice to describe what true India is all about. Americans, Europeans and many others have seen India comparing with their nation and its people. None of these travelers have seen India from an Indian’s perspective.

The mystic land of India, off late has been quoted as land of poor, farmers, beggars and snake charmers. Ancient travelers nevertheless were more truthful in their expression than the English colonial masters. The perception about India in today’s world is because of the image created by these so-called travelers who consider themselves the masters of everything. Even few non-resident Indians find the place not worth living yet they feel more about it. Their love and hate for the country is another dream of the nation what they want to carve comparing the other developed nation. Some of the people in the world whose lineage connects them to this land are both averse and attached emotionally. If you happened to read V S Naipaul, he wants to be away from India in his writing consciously, but unconsciously more he does that, more he is drawn towards this country of his fore fathers. Why is this love and lust?

In spite of the tarnished image created in the world about India and its people, still it attracts people across the world who want, at least, once in their lifetime to visit India. What make them feel so special about India?

Once I met a Japanese couple in New Delhi near India Gate. As I could see during the evening, they looked very much happy and contented than any other traveler who acted according to the whims and whishes of their travel agent and looked skeptic and careful. I could not resist to broke a conversation with this couple and asked what best they could see in India.

They replied, “India might be poor and underdeveloped but its people are rich. They are rich by heart. They might be hungry and unhappy, yet you give a smile to them, they will reply you with a bigger smile. That’s something amazing and makes your day.”

Technical Writing and the Domain Knowledge

Technical writers are often been questioned during the interview if they have worked earlier in the same domain or not. Even I have faced the same tune during my interviews on the previous occasions but mostly by those employers who have never shown any interest in my writing ability or my understanding ability of the subjects. For a writer, is it going to make any difference? If at all, it is going to make difference, the question is how much. Is there any one to quantify it? Interviewers possibly know this question much before they come across the candidate. The kind of work they have done previously or the companies they have worked for is enough to know about the domain a candidate has worked so far. Yet, this question is eventually asked.

I have not yet understood the real purpose of this question, may be the interviewers who are very much experience in the technical writing field can throw some light on this. Whereas I understand that technical writers are meant to work in a different setup at different times and they are basically writers who are by default supposed to clear up the mess in the writing and make it simpler and understandable to the readers. What happens if they have Domain Knowledge? Will their work be faster and smoother? I agree to some extent that writers will enjoy the comfort of knowing the subject well, and it will not be demanding either to spend much time in understanding it. But even if you are in the same domain, next time the topic changes, issue changes and the requirement changes. To cope up with all these one will have to spend required amount of time. Above all, can the writer be as knowledgeable as the Subject matter experts. The straight answer can be “no”. Technical writers can learn only some basics of the domain. That can be gathered during due course of time while working on the project.

So, why is this fuss? Is this a limiting factor for any of the technical writers to land up in any technical writing job before having domain knowledge? My answer is, it should not be. If it is so, then I believe subject matter experts will have to be the technical writers. Yes, but technical writers will have to be a fast learner and should have interest in learning things to present it to the audience what they are aiming for. In this perspective, it is right to have knowledge of your domain, which can always help you in understanding. But this is not the core requirement of a technical writer. The more years of work you put in some domain, the more you learn about it. But it should not become a constraint while you make a shift from one domain to another domain.

At the end of the day it is the choice of the technical writers themselves to analyze liking for a domain and if possible stick to that because that will eventually provide them some other opportunity in terms of career growth. Say for example, I have written for Telecommunication domain, Agriculture and now writing for Life Science products. My background is in life science and it gives me upper edge in understanding the business logic of the product but the work what we perform, does not require that much of specialized knowledge. For me this domain could be a liking domain and I may prefer to be in this domain and write about it. Similarly an engineer graduate who is into technical writing might choose to write more about hard core technology, a finance graduate might think of writing in financial product and management graduate can write about ERP and other related domain. It is all about likes and dislikes, which drives you to choose the domain.

This is one of the issues going round in the industry for quite some time and there should be clarity on this. Well, the necessity will definitely bring people to understand it by themselves. I remember there was a time when only engineers were in demand to be in the technical writing. But now the clout is out, writers can be found in any individual and of any background. Therefore, now the technical writers are from different backgrounds. Similarly the dearth of good technical writers will definitely wipe away the hypocrisy of domain knowledge, which some times block your entry into many of the good corporation. Early understanding would be the welcome step towards solving this issue.