Anant Arora at A a T m A n...conversations with the self

India may not develop because..

Its 2005 and I hear everyone around me yelling..'India Shining', 'India Superpower by 2020' and similar proses. I am with the movement and am waiting for the moment when we did something out of the ordinary. But, I still think India may not develop because..

Some noted economists and experts give several reasons of India not on the verge of development. One of the reasons generally given is in direct relation to the population and pollution levels of the country. I do not accord to such arguments. The population rate in the country is declining, labour is becoming more and more knowledge oriented, 65% under the age of 35 and as far as the pollution levels are concerned, do not forget the very fact that the United States, which accounts for the most developed nation for the past decade has much higher levels of pollution (they did not sign the Kyoto protocol, afterall).

But this entry of mine is directed towards what India is lacking and not the other way round. Remember, the greats always say that you need to imitate the leaders in order to be one. That is, you can be a developed nation only if you start behaving like one. One of the major reasons that I find counterfeit is we Indians do not practise what we preach. We change our perceptions to match with the current situations and do not stick to our arguments. To support my stated fact, at one point of time we say lets not buy Reebok becuase its stealing the market from Bata or Liberty but at some other point, we go and do it ourself. I think this is the case with every Indian mainly because we are selfless and mould ourselves according to the situation in hand. Another reason people talk towards the development is the BPO boom. I agree that it is sustaining a few young entrepreneurs and offering them a good salary but we still remain as slaves working for the overseas market. And as I portray it, no matter how fast an ass runs, it can never beat the horse!! Let us not be asses in the race..

I am waiting for the time the Americans would be begging every single individual, who is obtaining a Visa for the US, to stay back in the Untied States and not come back and the time when Indian Embassy would be denying Visas to Americans saying that they fear that the American would go to India and immigrate forever. That would be a point where I would say out loud, "India has developed!!"

posted by Anant Arora @ 5:49 PM 0 Comments

Conjunctive Disjunction or Disjunctive Conjunction

It looks paradoxical either way. We, Indians have a very unique way of obeying people (atleast, we do obey) i.e. whatever we are called for, we just go and do exactly the opposite. I recall a very famous saying that goes like:


Recently, I was visiting a friend near my house in Delhi when I came across this: "Dekho!! Gadha peshaab kar raha hai" (read: Look, This ass is peeing over here!) written on a house-wall. I was wondering of why people write such things on walls. Maybe, because the place where this was written is quite secluded and thus, a good place for people to pee since, there were no closets around. But, what caught my attention was not the fact that such a remark was scribbled on the wall, but the fact that why the heck did the writer wrote that the person who is peeing is an ass and in order to insult him, added for the on-lookers to tease him. Couldn't he have written "Micturating here is prohibited!". But then, we Indians never follow instructions ('there wouldn't be so much of road accidents and traffic-jams in Delhi had people followed one').

I though maybe I could improve upon this. Instead of using a conjunction for the person peeing at the wall i.e. dekho! yeh gadha hai AND yahaan peshaab kar raha hai (read"This is an ass AND is micturating here"), it should have been "dekho ! ya to yeh gadha hai ya yeh yahaan peshaab kar raha hai" (read: Either this guy is an ass or he is peeing here), it would have been mathematically correct, as you call the convict either an ass or a liliputian piddler if he is disobeying either. But, in the 'original manuscript', the person may not be an ass or may not be weeing there.

I hope this is not an act of McCarthyism!

posted by Anant Arora @ 7:25 PM 0 Comments