Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Black swans?!

"There is no culture out there", "They don't value relationships", "What kind of a living style is that" are some common phrases that one could commonly hear from Indians who have never been out of the country. If you are wondering whom they are commenting on, it's none but the westerners which in Indian dictionary means US for about 75% of the time and UK for the rest. Trust me... the world map has only a very few countries in the Indian perspective :)

But let's see how much truth is contained in the aforementioned opinions... Perhaps these opinions are based on the "My kids and your kids are playing with our kids" part of the western life. A few days at the Indian metros would clearly indicate that this culture has started spreading its wings in India too! With the traditional Hindu culture vanishing pretty quickly especially in urban India, we are no longer the source of the beautiful and unadultrated cultural light. That apart, do we have any great plus points that we can boast of?

Suspicion, lack of respect for others, fraud, needless hurry and so many other flaws can be easily spotted in us but still we claim that westerners lack culture. People might object this view especially mentioning that it's subjective but to be honest, I've seen the proportions blowing out in our people than the others. Hindu mythology says that a swan can extract just the milk out of a milk, water cocktail; leaving behind the adulteration. It is often quoted as a sign of being selective; and selective in a positive manner. But I strongly feel that we are being negative selectors just getting what we aren't supposed to get and forgetting what we need to get. Physical fitness, empathy for others, discipline, honesty, harmony and a lot of other qualities are out there in the west for us to learn or rather re-discover. But in reality we insist on seeing the black dot on a white sheet.

If we fail to understand our culture or their culture completely; and get into this coccoon of artificial cultural supremacy, we are not too far from facing the bitter reality and when we do, the impact would be much more negative than we expect it to be.

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