Outsourcing

Outsourcing is a process of shelling out some processes to an independent entity, by doing so, the outsourcing entity will fully or partially shun the process outsourced. The term outsourcing became popular during the 21^st century, when the developing countries did jobs at a cheaper rate, as compared to their developed counterpart. Thus started the culture of outsourcing the jobs, which either were not cost effective or unproductive on balance sheet. This process is now quite popular in most of the industries and has reaped good results.

Apparently, outsourcing has crept its way from industries to our personal life. Though most of us would deny the fact, but most of us have outsourced most of our daily and some important, yet apparently unproductive, tasks. Our households are cleaned by our maids; the food is cooked by a hired cook; the clothes are washed by the laundry guy and so on. There might be different school of thoughts on whether it is right to outsource our personal hygiene or not, just because, we are unable to manage our time. In most of the cultures, food is used as means to express emotions of the family, such as, some special food items are prepared during festivities; different dishes are cooked when someone special visits our place; the gas stove is kept out , during the mourning period. To our apathy, we have out sourced such an important means of expression. In Mahabharata, Draupati, imbibed a lot of cooking skills from her mother – in – law, Kunti, so that she may be more attractive to her husbands than Kunti. After having outsourced our kitchen, how can we expect our daughters to be a good cook?

Ours is such a rich culture, where the teachings are not passed through books or manuscripts, but from generations to generations, just by being in contact and imbibing by observation. To add an insult to our culture, we have now outsourced our kids. With the concept of crèches gaining popularity, most of the so called parents are outsourcing their kids to a third person, with whom they share a symbiotic monetary relationship. How can we now expect our kids to have our family values, when during the initial, tender learning period of their lives, they have been in the hands of a third person, whose only interest is to make money. What we are doing is, slowly killing our culture and learning, that our ancestors have left for us. These learning once lost, will be lost forever.

The main reason behind most of us outsourcing and unable to adjust with current lifestyle is improper distribution of duties. Now, most of the women have moved out of their defined sphere, which included, though not limited to, cooking washing, cleaning, taking care of children and entered the male sphere which is fetching resources for living and luxury. The male population has forced their female counter part to push out of the female sphere but they have not moved out of the male sphere, i.e. still in most of the households, where the wife is working, she has to take care of household. This is the biggest imbalance in their lives. The male population should inspire from the female similitude and move out of their zone and should enter the kitchen and perform other household jobs to maintain the balance.