Letter from India - Exchanging One Cliché for Another

[pampango]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/06/world/asia/06iht-letter.html

"I grew up between both countries, the son of an Indian father and an American mother, but my two homes always felt very far apart. For much of my childhood and early adulthood, India and America were literally — but also culturally, socially, politically and experientially — on opposite sides of the planet."

"When I moved to America in the early 1990s, India was little more than a cipher in the American imagination. Many of my new friends were uninterested in and uninformed about the country that I desperately missed. India was defined by the broadest, and usually most unflattering, of brush strokes — stereotypes about poverty and corruption, images of crowds, maybe a vague sense of what Indians in America used to call the “three C’s”: caste, cows and curry."

"Across America, I meet taxi drivers, shopkeepers and businessmen who speak admiringly about the opportunities and promise of a new India. The “three C’s” have been replaced by an altogether more modern — and certainly more prosperous — set of associations: technology, outsourcing, billionaires, Bollywood."

"When I visit cities like Bangalore or Mumbai, I see swarms of young American interns and workers(?), all in the country to chase professional opportunities, escaping the economic stagnation at home. Their sight inspires a certain thrill, and perhaps a little schadenfreude: Who would have ever imagined that India would be creating opportunities for economic refugees from the land of opportunity?"

"Back in India now after my time in New York, I’m grateful for all that this country has achieved over the last couple of decades — all the external signs of success (the gleaming technology parks, the new roads, the shopping malls) and all the other, less tangible transformations that I know are expanding horizons and opportunities for hundreds of millions of people. But I am reminded, too, of all that remains to be done: the poverty that exists despite the new economic success, the islands of deprivation that have in many respects only grown more resilient since the start of India’s boom."

[Captain Hilts]

1. I'm glad the govt - beginning with Clinton - and continued by GWB and BO is understanding

that India is a natural ally of the US on many levels.

The many Indians speak English better than we do is also a boon to the relationship.

We all need to better understand India and its people and their dedication to Democracy under difficult circumstances.

[pampango]

2. Indeed. We'll have issues with India (as we do with England, Canada and others) from time to time,

but India is as much a natural ally.

I was intrigued by the writer's statement "When I visit cities like Bangalore or Mumbai, I see swarms of young American interns and workers, all in the country to chase professional opportunities, escaping the economic stagnation at home." I've heard of increasing numbers of Indian-Americans going (or returning) to India work. He didn't specify Indian-Americans when he referred to "American interns and workers", but perhaps that is what he meant.

[Captain Hilts]

3. Indians buy into our culture to a degree few native born here do. And because so many

speak English, they hit the ground running.

They believe in the free market economy, but they also believe in government and bureaucracy.

They're just now starting to get involved in politics.

Good for them. They might do a better job than the folks currently running things. Same for Canada. I lived in Toronto for 4 years.

[BolivarianHero]

4. It can only get better...

Now that they ousted the fundamentalist BJP and its neo-Nazi allies in Shiv Sena.

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

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[msongs]

6. they will have our jobs and we will have their poverty - is that a great swap or what? nt

[Starbucks Anarchist]

8. I've seen poverty in India up close.

Believe me, our poverty is a walk in the park in comparison.

[BOG PERSON]

9. You can't "own" a job unless its your business

[Vehl]

7. Good article

As the writer correctly points out, India's achievements are huge, even though a lot remains to be done.
Change takes time in a country like India, the world's biggest success story of parliamentary democracy. But one would rather be a democratic country with slow change than a despotic/totalitarian regime with fast change.


On a related note; not everyone from India has the stereotypical Indian accent as some here might believe :)...Indian accents vary as much as American English accents do. No more, no less.