Sure I am happy for all those hard working folks that made SM. Am I happy for India? No way. Am I happy for the people of India? Far from it. You should have seen how people were glued to TVs, how the press goes ga-ga over it.
We Indians should be ashamed of ourselves as this behavior.
The last time something similar happened was when Gandhi won awards. And then of course this month Aishwarya Rai was released in Pink Panther and the entire sub-continent thinks we are on top of the world! Come on people, be real.
We are a land of how many? We like to pride outselves of our culture, of our intelligence, of our math skills, of our software engineers. What we don't understand and realize is how we've been exploited since hundreds of years. Today, it is modern exploitation. We do the world's back office operations. Sure we earn a few dollars like a servant that makes some earning, but there is no value addition. The money is being made elsewhere.
We are the software developers of the world, but we don't own the Intellectual property. We are white collar 'majoors'.
We can't even get ourselves a proper name. Our film industry is coined Bollywood; oooh so original. Bangalore is the Silicon Valley of India - wow! Heck, even the word Hindu is not original. The people living in Hind started being called Hindus.
Anyway, what bugs me and therefore drives me crazy is that we ought to stop drowning ourselves in this self-intoxicating urine.
Why can't we create something original? Movies, Software, technology, whatever.
Unfortunately, what is our original we don't value. Instead of valuing and marketing the heck out of Ayurveda, we ignore it just as we don't even care about Sanskrit and Vedas. We know how Germans have dedicated themselves to a deeper understanding of our culture.
The Challenge.
Here's the challenge. Let's create something, let's market something where it is truly original. Where we can show the world the stuff we are made of and the world comes to us to buy our products and not just our labor. I want to invite anyone who agrees with me to start a dialog, start brainstorming and ultimately action. We've got the brains, we've got the money or know how to get it.
Let's go get'em India - Chak de India
