Is this an undesirable shade of Pride called VANITY?
Before you read this, just take a look at a very well written blog Pride or Vanity.
Extracts from this blog are in blue while extracts from Indians-What we've Achieved are in green.
Dissecting and analyzing what people say is not my kind of a thing. I wouldn’t do it if I could help it. In this case, I just couldn’t help it ..lol! I can't deny that there are a whole lot of such emails floating around. It sure is a pain in the neck sometimes. Meaningless and uninteresting forwards are doubtlessly a waste of time and resources. I don’t intend to defend people sending such forwards. There’s absolutely no point in digging in your heels trying to defend them.
Its one thing to read some senseless blabber that’s sent around either for the heck of staying in touch or with some fallacious and childish idea of making people patriotic, but, its quite another to try inducing a change of attitude amongst Indians (I think its possible to do this by presenting facts and figures).
"38% of Doctors in America are Indians.
12% of Scientists in America are Indians.
36% of NASA employees are Indians.
34% of MICROSOFT employees are Indians
28% of IBM employees are Indians
17% of INTEL employees are Indians
13% of XEROX employees are Indians"
Extracts from this blog are in blue while extracts from Indians-What we've Achieved are in green.
Dissecting and analyzing what people say is not my kind of a thing. I wouldn’t do it if I could help it. In this case, I just couldn’t help it ..lol! I can't deny that there are a whole lot of such emails floating around. It sure is a pain in the neck sometimes. Meaningless and uninteresting forwards are doubtlessly a waste of time and resources. I don’t intend to defend people sending such forwards. There’s absolutely no point in digging in your heels trying to defend them.
Its one thing to read some senseless blabber that’s sent around either for the heck of staying in touch or with some fallacious and childish idea of making people patriotic, but, its quite another to try inducing a change of attitude amongst Indians (I think its possible to do this by presenting facts and figures).
"38% of Doctors in America are Indians.
12% of Scientists in America are Indians.
36% of NASA employees are Indians.
34% of MICROSOFT employees are Indians
28% of IBM employees are Indians
17% of INTEL employees are Indians
13% of XEROX employees are Indians"
-Well, I have no clue if this piece of statistical data is accurate, but it definitely sounds reasonable-based what little I get to know from the papers and the people (known to me) working in these industries/who are professionals in these areas
"We Indians always have the uncanny habit of degrading ourselves without looking into what we have achieved…"
-Now this sure is true. There’s an excellent example for this here-"Isn't it enough that we have a very bad image outside? Do we need to appear so desperate to show our 'superiority' over the whiteys?"
-Come on, gimme a break! Whats this about us having a bad image or a good one? It’s all in the mind. As you think so you'll be!
By the way, for what reason under the sun do we have a BAD IMAGE? I fail to understand this! Every country has problems and even if India does have a "bad image", images are never static. They are forever changing. No big deal!
All the same, this mind set is changing pretty fast amongst the Indians-Thank our stars!!
"Days are not far off when we Indians, whether in India or otherwise, will be a dominant force to reckon with if not already…"
-Looks like an extract from a pep speech. All the same, this is true. To me, it doesn’t appear to be "vacant, empty, jingoistic rhetorics, like the rooster shouting from the top of a haystack"(bombastic words-jingoistic rhetoric and a neat li'll simile-like the rooster shouting from the top of a haystack, don't make much of an impact if what is said doesn’t appeal to ones common sense).
At this point, let me make a declaration-History has never been my favorite subject and my knowledge about Indian history is very limited. What follows is just a bit of reasoning I did.
"The World's first university was established in Takshashila in 700BC. More than 10,500 students from all over the world studied more than 60 subjects. The University of Nalanda built in the 4th century BC was one of the greatest achievements of ancient India in the field of education"
-I'm sure that every Indian child reads this piece as a part of the History lessons. I trust the Indian government to the extent that they would not be publishing stuff that isn’t true.
"At the peak of Nalanda University, the world was limited to Japan on the East, and the Mediterranean Roman Empire on the west. South was limited to Ceylon and possible Maldives and/or Madagascar. North of India, China was the only region known, not even our closest ally Russia was known at that time"
-The fact remains that the University of Nalanda was sought after for the education that it had to offer. This is irrespective of what existed in the rest of the world. To run a university at that point in time is no joke!
Besides, you never know...there was a great deal of trading and exploring in progress. How can anybody be sure as to people in which parts of the world were connected to each other? I would definitely dig deeper into this, if only I had the time to!
"Also remember that 'India' existed only as thousands of small warring kingdoms, so close to 90% of the 10000+ students would have been from within the subcontinent (@ an average of 10 students per country)"
-Amazing that the warring kingdoms should send their students (non residents) across to this varsity. Wonder what happened if a war broke out?!.
-Even if this Std V math kind of 'fact' is true (10 per country from 1000 countries WITHIN India), it shows how civilized Indians were. The students were able to continue studying there in spite of the wars!
-There definitely were students from various countries in that university. Visit
http://www.indiaprofile.com/destinations/nalanda.htm and
http://www.indiantravels.com/world-heritage-sites/nalanda-university.html for details.
"Varanasi, also known as Benares, was called the ancient city when Lord Buddha visited it in 500 B.C.E, and is the oldest, continuously inhabited city in the world today"
-This is a fact based on archaeological evidences. Theres nothing more to say about it!
"Grammar constitutes one of India's greatest contributions to Western philology. Panini, the Sanskrit grammarian, who lived between 750 and 500 BC, was the first to compose formal grammar through his Astadhyai.
Sanskrit is the mother of all the European languages. Sanskrit is the most suitable language for computer software"
"When they say Sanskrit is the most suitable for computers, they talk about the grammar (constructs) and them alone, not the script or vocabulary or stuff like that"
-Think this is exactly what is implied in ‘Indians-what we’ve achieved’. Nobody denied it!
"Mere feel-good words like these won't help achieve this, only actions"
-Well, excuse me...do take a look around you sometimes.'Action' is happening everywhere boss. Theres no harm if words tag along too right? (the vice versa is what is not agreeable….I suppose). If theres no 'Action' happening 'n just "vacant, empty, jingoistic rhetorics" from atop the "haystack", then why are so many of us employed by multinational giants and why are so many projects being outsourced by other countries (cost cutting is not the only reason. If you know the way things work now, cost cutting is never done choking quality) This is just one of the many developments that show case the fact that 'Action' is happening. Listing down facts and figures is not my cup of tea. I leave it to your discretion and judgment to look around and decide for yourself whether some 'Action' has happened!
I strongly agree that fallacies cannot be taken for pride for the country. One cannot live in the past. It’s the present that matters, but theres no harm in taking a look backwards once in a while. All that this blog (Indians-What we’ve achieved) says about India makes sense to me. Considering the future, change is the only thing that doesn’t change...but it’s important to make it a desirable one. To feed in some positive facts in order to initiate this change is a welcome attempt.
This blog projects some positive facts about the country and induces the feeling that we, after all, do have things that are looked up at by the rest of the world. This is not just a glorification of something that’s worth nothing right now. Infact, India is worth much more now than it was any time in the past and its worth is increasing by leaps and bounds. It is pointless to jump down somebody's throat just ‘cos that somebody wanted to make a difference in the way people think. What say u?
"We Indians always have the uncanny habit of degrading ourselves without looking into what we have achieved…"
-Now this sure is true. There’s an excellent example for this here-"Isn't it enough that we have a very bad image outside? Do we need to appear so desperate to show our 'superiority' over the whiteys?"
-Come on, gimme a break! Whats this about us having a bad image or a good one? It’s all in the mind. As you think so you'll be!
By the way, for what reason under the sun do we have a BAD IMAGE? I fail to understand this! Every country has problems and even if India does have a "bad image", images are never static. They are forever changing. No big deal!
All the same, this mind set is changing pretty fast amongst the Indians-Thank our stars!!
"Days are not far off when we Indians, whether in India or otherwise, will be a dominant force to reckon with if not already…"
-Looks like an extract from a pep speech. All the same, this is true. To me, it doesn’t appear to be "vacant, empty, jingoistic rhetorics, like the rooster shouting from the top of a haystack"(bombastic words-jingoistic rhetoric and a neat li'll simile-like the rooster shouting from the top of a haystack, don't make much of an impact if what is said doesn’t appeal to ones common sense).
At this point, let me make a declaration-History has never been my favorite subject and my knowledge about Indian history is very limited. What follows is just a bit of reasoning I did.
"The World's first university was established in Takshashila in 700BC. More than 10,500 students from all over the world studied more than 60 subjects. The University of Nalanda built in the 4th century BC was one of the greatest achievements of ancient India in the field of education"
-I'm sure that every Indian child reads this piece as a part of the History lessons. I trust the Indian government to the extent that they would not be publishing stuff that isn’t true.
"At the peak of Nalanda University, the world was limited to Japan on the East, and the Mediterranean Roman Empire on the west. South was limited to Ceylon and possible Maldives and/or Madagascar. North of India, China was the only region known, not even our closest ally Russia was known at that time"
-The fact remains that the University of Nalanda was sought after for the education that it had to offer. This is irrespective of what existed in the rest of the world. To run a university at that point in time is no joke!
Besides, you never know...there was a great deal of trading and exploring in progress. How can anybody be sure as to people in which parts of the world were connected to each other? I would definitely dig deeper into this, if only I had the time to!
"Also remember that 'India' existed only as thousands of small warring kingdoms, so close to 90% of the 10000+ students would have been from within the subcontinent (@ an average of 10 students per country)"
-Amazing that the warring kingdoms should send their students (non residents) across to this varsity. Wonder what happened if a war broke out?!.
-Even if this Std V math kind of 'fact' is true (10 per country from 1000 countries WITHIN India), it shows how civilized Indians were. The students were able to continue studying there in spite of the wars!
-There definitely were students from various countries in that university. Visit
http://www.indiaprofile.com/destinations/nalanda.htm and
http://www.indiantravels.com/world-heritage-sites/nalanda-university.html for details.
"Varanasi, also known as Benares, was called the ancient city when Lord Buddha visited it in 500 B.C.E, and is the oldest, continuously inhabited city in the world today"
-This is a fact based on archaeological evidences. Theres nothing more to say about it!
"Grammar constitutes one of India's greatest contributions to Western philology. Panini, the Sanskrit grammarian, who lived between 750 and 500 BC, was the first to compose formal grammar through his Astadhyai.
Sanskrit is the mother of all the European languages. Sanskrit is the most suitable language for computer software"
"When they say Sanskrit is the most suitable for computers, they talk about the grammar (constructs) and them alone, not the script or vocabulary or stuff like that"
-Think this is exactly what is implied in ‘Indians-what we’ve achieved’. Nobody denied it!
"Mere feel-good words like these won't help achieve this, only actions"
-Well, excuse me...do take a look around you sometimes.'Action' is happening everywhere boss. Theres no harm if words tag along too right? (the vice versa is what is not agreeable….I suppose). If theres no 'Action' happening 'n just "vacant, empty, jingoistic rhetorics" from atop the "haystack", then why are so many of us employed by multinational giants and why are so many projects being outsourced by other countries (cost cutting is not the only reason. If you know the way things work now, cost cutting is never done choking quality) This is just one of the many developments that show case the fact that 'Action' is happening. Listing down facts and figures is not my cup of tea. I leave it to your discretion and judgment to look around and decide for yourself whether some 'Action' has happened!
I strongly agree that fallacies cannot be taken for pride for the country. One cannot live in the past. It’s the present that matters, but theres no harm in taking a look backwards once in a while. All that this blog (Indians-What we’ve achieved) says about India makes sense to me. Considering the future, change is the only thing that doesn’t change...but it’s important to make it a desirable one. To feed in some positive facts in order to initiate this change is a welcome attempt.
This blog projects some positive facts about the country and induces the feeling that we, after all, do have things that are looked up at by the rest of the world. This is not just a glorification of something that’s worth nothing right now. Infact, India is worth much more now than it was any time in the past and its worth is increasing by leaps and bounds. It is pointless to jump down somebody's throat just ‘cos that somebody wanted to make a difference in the way people think. What say u?
posted by Xena at 12/08/2004
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