Foreigners usually look at India from small windows to it - the most popular window being Bollywood followed by Indian Cuisine, (Western) Media and last but not the least Indians themselves (NRIs and PIOs). The picture of India visible to them through these windows is like understanding prehistoric ages from artifacts in a paleontology museum. This many times leads to funny perceptions - some of which I elucidate below.
An African Indian colleague of mine is very curious about Bollywood. During a chat with him I exclaimed that Shahrukh Khan is from Delhi - he was nothing but surprised on hearing this.
His immediate query was - When did he shift to Delhi?
Me: He was born and brought up there man.
Him: Oh! But I thought he was from Pakistan!"
I was aghast! But he went on - So Amir Khan must be from Pakistan, right?
Me: No dude! He is from Mumbai!
Him: Then Salman ....
Me: No Salman too is from Mumbai!! No Bollywood actors are from Pakistan-they are all Indians!
Another interesting discussion happened with a colleague who was planning on getting married. He asked me quite philosophically - "What do you think? Is it very difficult to find someone?"
Having never pondered upon this question myself, I was kind of taken aback, but the MBA in me soon sprang into action as I blurted some crap to him. This did not deter him and he went on to ask me whether I would ever want to get married to a non-Indian. I feigned to give the query a deep thought and finally answered in true MBA style - "Depends!" But having pity on his naivete, I went on to explain that for me the first decision would be whether to marry Marathi girl or not - marrying a foreigner would be next step!
This explanation completely baffled him and he asked me how many different sub-cultures were there in India. It was only when I tried explaining him the concept of communities and their numbers in India that I realized how ignorant the whole world was about Indians and their 'varieties'.
Another area of ignorance of especially British people is distance. So many of them think that Delhi and Mumbai are a few hours away by road and Bangalore and Mumbai are like sister cities. And hardly anyone imagines that even the C-level cities in India have more population than an average city in naivete. A colleague once asked me whether I took a Cycle-rickshaw to office everyday.
But all the naivete of the foreigners mostly amuses you making you smile and brush it off. The painful part comes when your own fellows - NRI's and PIO's serve inaccurate and flawed stories about India, glorifying its negatives and subduing the positives. Arundhati Roy's "God of Small Things" is one of the illustrations of such lies that are fed to the world in the name of India, and our own elitist media too is partially responsible for the same.
However, in the recent years due to economic rise and cultural opening, the western media has been getting increasingly direct access to India. This has acted positively, wherein stories from the rise of BPOs to the 'wonder transport' Tuc Tuc (Auto Rickshaw) are proliferating western journals. Just yesterday the observer published a good article about India's positive efforts towards Climate and Environmental controls. The recent bid by the Tata's to buy out Corus Steel (erstwhile British Steel) received primetime coverage on BBC which also included a short feature on Tata's history. All this has lead to building not only a positive image but also an image distinct from that of rest of the countries like Pakistan, Iraq, Sri Lanka and others who were earlier counted along with India.
Finally the nation of elephants of snake charmers has become amusing for other more meaningful reasons!
An African Indian colleague of mine is very curious about Bollywood. During a chat with him I exclaimed that Shahrukh Khan is from Delhi - he was nothing but surprised on hearing this.
His immediate query was - When did he shift to Delhi?
Me: He was born and brought up there man.
Him: Oh! But I thought he was from Pakistan!"
I was aghast! But he went on - So Amir Khan must be from Pakistan, right?
Me: No dude! He is from Mumbai!
Him: Then Salman ....
Me: No Salman too is from Mumbai!! No Bollywood actors are from Pakistan-they are all Indians!
Another interesting discussion happened with a colleague who was planning on getting married. He asked me quite philosophically - "What do you think? Is it very difficult to find someone?"
Having never pondered upon this question myself, I was kind of taken aback, but the MBA in me soon sprang into action as I blurted some crap to him. This did not deter him and he went on to ask me whether I would ever want to get married to a non-Indian. I feigned to give the query a deep thought and finally answered in true MBA style - "Depends!" But having pity on his naivete, I went on to explain that for me the first decision would be whether to marry Marathi girl or not - marrying a foreigner would be next step!
This explanation completely baffled him and he asked me how many different sub-cultures were there in India. It was only when I tried explaining him the concept of communities and their numbers in India that I realized how ignorant the whole world was about Indians and their 'varieties'.
Another area of ignorance of especially British people is distance. So many of them think that Delhi and Mumbai are a few hours away by road and Bangalore and Mumbai are like sister cities. And hardly anyone imagines that even the C-level cities in India have more population than an average city in naivete. A colleague once asked me whether I took a Cycle-rickshaw to office everyday.
But all the naivete of the foreigners mostly amuses you making you smile and brush it off. The painful part comes when your own fellows - NRI's and PIO's serve inaccurate and flawed stories about India, glorifying its negatives and subduing the positives. Arundhati Roy's "God of Small Things" is one of the illustrations of such lies that are fed to the world in the name of India, and our own elitist media too is partially responsible for the same.
However, in the recent years due to economic rise and cultural opening, the western media has been getting increasingly direct access to India. This has acted positively, wherein stories from the rise of BPOs to the 'wonder transport' Tuc Tuc (Auto Rickshaw) are proliferating western journals. Just yesterday the observer published a good article about India's positive efforts towards Climate and Environmental controls. The recent bid by the Tata's to buy out Corus Steel (erstwhile British Steel) received primetime coverage on BBC which also included a short feature on Tata's history. All this has lead to building not only a positive image but also an image distinct from that of rest of the countries like Pakistan, Iraq, Sri Lanka and others who were earlier counted along with India.
Finally the nation of elephants of snake charmers has become amusing for other more meaningful reasons!
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