Sunday, November 18, 2007

Guide to Indian Idiocy II

In my previous article, Guide to Indian Idiocy I, I listed three laws of Indian Idiocy. They being primary, I have included in here few secondary laws.

Law of small gains and big losses

Indians look for small gains, momentary gains, and ephemeral pleasures while they lose out on the big stuff. In their eagerness and greediness guided by short-sightedness to gain small things, they tend to lose out on the big picture consistently.

Take for example, Indians in traffic. On an intersection, all the parties keep inching forward gaining extremely small steps of few inches, but in the whole process the whole traffic gets blocked for many minutes – sometimes losing more than thirty minutes. Nobody backs down, nobody wants to think, ‘OK, if I just hold myself back here for few minutes, this traffic will clear up and then I can proceed’.

The same can be said of the present chaos in Bangalore or any Indian city. Every homeowner wants to gain a little ground here and there. There is a whole art of encroachment happening in Indian cities. People are coming with innovative ways to maximize their occupation area, sometimes encroaching upon the roads, or the drainage system or the parking area, etc. This is a small gain, making one person happy, but eventually the whole system gets affected when there is a traffic jam everyday, when rain water completely submerges their parking lot, or when the drainage water keeps seeping into every home. Indians love to make small gains while losing out on the big pictures.

There are many such examples, all you have to do is look for one- either it is a line in a movie theater, traffic, our policy making or governing the country. It’s all about small gains and big losses.

Law of gradual suffocation

Indians like to die a gradual and slow death by suffocating and choking themselves.

Take for example, Indians in traffic. When waiting for a bus, the crowd first comes out of the bus stand to wait on the road itself thus narrowing the road width for traffic. The next person comes along and inches himself further onto the road. Eventually a big wedge shaped human formation is formed on the road thus completely choking the traffic. Every person is popping their head out and standing on the road waiting for the bus thus suffocating the traffic.

The same can be said of Indian construction and road maintenance. Every new construction dumps their construction material onto the road slowly choking it to eventually kill it. Every new project slowly chokes itself to death making it untenable.

Law of Inheritance

In India, all your talents, academic qualifications and successes are passed onto your kid.

For example, all actors’ kids are also actors, without any exceptions. A son of Amitabh Bachchan is definitely an actor. We do not even need to question that. Therefore, we have all kinds of actors thrown at us- like Tushar Kapoor, Esha Deol and what not, who are completely and utterly worthless but are tolerated and sometimes celebrated

For example, all politicians’ kids are also politicians. Motilal Nehru, Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and now Rahul Gandhi have all become presidents of Congress Party- consistently for five generations. Rahul Gandhi is now slated to become Prime Minister of India, no questions asked.

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