Tuesday, January 13, 2009

I wonder and, I wonder ...

I thank God, my family, friends and well-wishers. I have been fortunate enough to have been able to fulfill many of my genuine (?) desires.

Out of the many delicacies life has offered me, globetrotting is my favorite. It has indeed been a pleasure to have worked with great people both in academia and industry who evaluated my so called credentials to be worthy of sponsored international travel. Other than that, I thank first, my parents and second, my boss to have provided sufficient funds for personal travel expenses :-)

So now, having said that, and taking the topic through an orthogonal path, here's the question:
The majority of malls in US/UK/Asia/EU serve local foods (bagels/tacos in US, noodles/rice in asia, bread/pizza in Italy etc). But its rare to find a mall in India that serves indian sweets? I am sure many malls in India would have an awesome cake/pastry store. But why not the good Indian sweets? So is the case with samosa/kachori/mirchibadas.

Also it is quite natural to expect Ben & Jerry's to kick-off a chain in Indian malls. I wonder if people really don't know the amazing digestive orgasm our kulfi's and rabdi's are capable of. Or is it that the gen-X has blatantly rejected to crave for these wonderful Indian dishes?

It is ironical that one can find Coke or Pepsi almost in any mall, but its rare to find khas/gulab sherbet or good old lassi/chaach. If we don't get pepsi, we take no time to pass critical comments on that place. However, have any of us really thought about how the presence of real "indian" foods would make a difference?

There is a good chance that you would find people smoking outside the malls (thank god that they don't allow it within the premises). And so would you see folks chewing gum frequently. However, do we consider setting up a paan shop in a mall? Cleanliness is a complete responsibility of the citizens themselves. Moreover we have wastebins in place to take care of the "peek".

Moving forward with the issue: I have noticed that the majority of billboards in China, Japan, Europe display ads/messages in Chinese, Japanese, French/German/Dutch etc. However, I feel the deep impact of the 200 years of imperial reign when I see us, Indians, showcasing themselves in the Brit Lingo.

I was updated that our very own shiv-sena "forces" tore/broke down many stores in some mall in Maharashtra just because they didn't bear their names in Marathi. I just want to ask them if they looked around for marathi on the Adidas/Reebok/Bata shoe they were wearing or the Lee/Levis/Wrangler jeans/tees they had donned.

My point is not to demean the pros of the country. I want to stress on the fact is that we Indians are winning the world over, however I feel that we're paying a great cost for it, completely unaware of. It is the cost of losing our individual identities as Indians, very much like the Sameer who turns into Sam or Vikram who turns into Victor in the indian call-centres. People mock at their nature of job, but then I feel each one of us is on the same path.

My deepest quest come to this: The leading/growing economies of the world - China, Japan, Germany, France or US/UK never gave up their own cult as a price to progress, then why India? Isn't this another form of "foreign rule" that we're unknowingly surrendering to? Ever wondered why are we so good at "providing services" to other nations while the biggest problem of our country remains to sweep out own homes and throw away the deepseated evils from our society? Is it mere humbleness or is it the long-term effects of a captive nation under many races of "foreign rule"?

As Kim says, "think about it"!

-A