We Indians, in general, have this very bad habit of boasting about various things like our IT capabilities and our CULTURE etc. But a serious thought reveals that these two and many other such things are grossly overvalued by us.
Very often I read we Indians are IT Superpower. Well when I first heard of this oxymoronic word I thought that since we are an IT super power we should be having (1) our very own Operating System, (2) our very own APPLICATION SOFTWARES which we will be running in our systems (3) our very own PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES ...... and much more our own things. Unfortunately I couldn't find any worthwhile stuff that can make me proud and say yes we are a super power in IT. When I confronted some of my friends and elders with this I was trounced with logics like the following...... "first ever email service was designed by an indian...."...."without we indians half the silicon valley will fall apart" .... "we indians are the backbone of all great firms like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Open Source Softwares...."........
The truth is rather very harsh for us and our ego doesn't allow us to gulp it. Every building requires one chief engineer. Under him are 10 supervisors. And under each supervisor are 100s of workers, labourers. We Indians are those labourers. Hundreds of thousands of labourers providing services to international firms and working for them. Our IT super prowess is actually our demographic super prowess. The day US, UK and European countries stop outsourcing IT jobs to India, we will fall from being an IT superpower. A harsh truth which we can hardly gulp.
Then we have culture to boast of. What kind of culture are we talking about. A culture in which women are killed before they see the light of the day? A culture where people are discriminated due to their birth and not due to their work? A culture which teaches us to become more self centred than otherwise??
My Friend Asif was having a discussion with me and he was right to point out that in India every man wants to earn as much so that he can leave money for his coming generations. Philanthropy is the last thing on their list, if at all. Look at Warren Buffet. He has willed that his sons will have to make their own money and he will give away everything that he has earned in charity. Can we think of a single Indian here???
We look at foreigners with disdain. We say they have no culture. if killing females, discriminating against people, and being racist against own people is our culture then its good not to have one. From a hair pin to ocean liners every stuff we can think of has been invented outside India. And we are proud of our culture and science. We keep on harping what we knew ten thousand years back. We harp about PUSHPAK VIMANA as the first aeroplane. We harp about AYURVEDA. And yet when we get gangarin on our body or cancer, we don't go to ayurveda. We rush to allopathy, the foreign medicine concept. Are we being ignorant or outright hypocrits?
On one hand we use the stuff invented by foreigners and on the other hand we despise them. We Indians are Superpowers in only one thing- Being Hypocrites.
Very often I read we Indians are IT Superpower. Well when I first heard of this oxymoronic word I thought that since we are an IT super power we should be having (1) our very own Operating System, (2) our very own APPLICATION SOFTWARES which we will be running in our systems (3) our very own PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES ...... and much more our own things. Unfortunately I couldn't find any worthwhile stuff that can make me proud and say yes we are a super power in IT. When I confronted some of my friends and elders with this I was trounced with logics like the following...... "first ever email service was designed by an indian...."...."without we indians half the silicon valley will fall apart" .... "we indians are the backbone of all great firms like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Open Source Softwares...."........
The truth is rather very harsh for us and our ego doesn't allow us to gulp it. Every building requires one chief engineer. Under him are 10 supervisors. And under each supervisor are 100s of workers, labourers. We Indians are those labourers. Hundreds of thousands of labourers providing services to international firms and working for them. Our IT super prowess is actually our demographic super prowess. The day US, UK and European countries stop outsourcing IT jobs to India, we will fall from being an IT superpower. A harsh truth which we can hardly gulp.
Then we have culture to boast of. What kind of culture are we talking about. A culture in which women are killed before they see the light of the day? A culture where people are discriminated due to their birth and not due to their work? A culture which teaches us to become more self centred than otherwise??
My Friend Asif was having a discussion with me and he was right to point out that in India every man wants to earn as much so that he can leave money for his coming generations. Philanthropy is the last thing on their list, if at all. Look at Warren Buffet. He has willed that his sons will have to make their own money and he will give away everything that he has earned in charity. Can we think of a single Indian here???
We look at foreigners with disdain. We say they have no culture. if killing females, discriminating against people, and being racist against own people is our culture then its good not to have one. From a hair pin to ocean liners every stuff we can think of has been invented outside India. And we are proud of our culture and science. We keep on harping what we knew ten thousand years back. We harp about PUSHPAK VIMANA as the first aeroplane. We harp about AYURVEDA. And yet when we get gangarin on our body or cancer, we don't go to ayurveda. We rush to allopathy, the foreign medicine concept. Are we being ignorant or outright hypocrits?
On one hand we use the stuff invented by foreigners and on the other hand we despise them. We Indians are Superpowers in only one thing- Being Hypocrites.
