Ratheesh KrishnaVadhyar (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} ratheesh) wrote,@ 2007-12-23 22:34:00 |
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Games Indians Play
When I was in the US, a couple of times I happened to visit the Santa Clara County Library at Milpitas with my colleague. I was surprised to see the amazing collection of films and books they have there - Films ranging from Renoir's The River to Satyajit Ray's Ghare Bhaire, numerous classics from France, Germany, Korea, Iran, Japan and several other countries, and even recent Tamil commercial films - all of which people can take for viewing free of cost. We can pick up any number of books or CDs and I guess except for special cases, we can keep them with us until we finish reading/watching them (for unlimited period, that is). I am not very clear how this facility is provided free of cost, but if it is from the taxpayer's money, I would say that that is the best way of "giving back".
All the books and DVDs are arranged neatly and systematically in the library. What would have been the case if there was such a library in India? The place would have looked like a "fish market" and within a few hours after its opening, people would have grabbed everything from there. Tearing pages from books or even not returning books and DVDs would be commonplace in India. Indians feel thrilled when they hear the word "FREE"; Apparently, my colleague told me that majority of visitors to the library are NRIs. Indeed, I could see mostly Indians there, collecting as many CDs as they could hold in their hands, as if they are going to participate in some movie-watching competition. I am sure that Indians leaving Santa Clara for good may be looking forward to collect many books and CDs from the library as souvenirs.
Cut to Frankfurt airport during my return trip - After a pleasant flight from San Francisco to Frankfurt, I was following the direction-indicators to reach the counter for my connecting flight to Bangalore. There were 2 more hours to go for the boarding to start so I was walking at a slow pace when I saw that interesting phenomena - A long queue had been formed in front of two gates - The gates for flights to Bangalore and Hyderabad, of course. The queues flowed like snakes, causing inconvenience to all others. Indians standing ahead in the queue were staring at others coming to join behind with some sort of satisfaction brimming in their eyes.
Now, what is the reason for this queue formation when the boarding time was a good 2 hours away? Is it for entering the waiting hall in advance to grab those few chairs kept there? Or is it just because of the Indian addiction for waiting in queues and breaking them? I am not sure. Anyways, as a true Indian, I too joined the queue. Shortly, a young Indian (a software engineer, what else he could be?) came to me and asked: "Isn’t the boarding at 12:20? Why are you all standing in the queue already?". I felt a bit ashamed of myself, so just smiled sheepishly. He too joined the queue shortly, anyways.
While standing in the queue, I could hear a conversation from behind. I could gather that a US citizen was traveling to Bangalore as he intended to work there for an year, and he was having a chat with two Indian software engineers standing behind me in the queue. "I have heard Bangalore is a nice city. Beautiful with lots of gardens and all!", He said. I felt pity on him. The Indian engineers broke his hopes and informed him that Bangalore is a dirty city like most of the Indian cities. The Indian guy who was standing behind me then started discussing with the US guy about the great climate conditions and beauty of Austin, Texas, trying to speak in American accent. "How many years you have been living in Austin?" The US guy asked. "Er.. just a week! I went to visit my company headquarters there!", replied the Indian engineer. (A digression - Few weeks back, the CEO of my company announced a joint venture with an Indian company. The announcement was made when the CEO of the Indian company too was present on the stage. Soon after the announcement, the Indian CEO was asked to say a few words, and then we could see an amazing demonstration of what we call in Malayalam as "sayippine kanumbol kavathu marakkuka" - The Indian CEO literally stooped down in front of the American CEO, reminding of that infamous photograph of the 1990s which showed PV Narasimha Rao standing in front of Soniya Gandhi respectfully as if he was in front of God, and said something like this with a visible display of reverence: "We are honored and blessed that you thought about us for this joint venture, and I just hope that we would be able to meet your expectations...". We Indians either show "kavathu marakkal" (read as slave mentality) in front of foreigners, or try to create the impression that we are a step above other "insignificant" Indians).
After some time, the gate counter opened, and we were allowed to get inside and sit in the waiting hall. Another half an hour, and they announced boarding. They initially asked for people sitting in the back-rows to board, but all Indians promptly started rushing in. My seat was on row 52, but when I entered the aircraft I found that all Indians had already occupied their seats irrespective of their rows, and filled all luggage compartments with huge bags. There was no space in my overhead compartment to keep my bag, so I took help from an airhostess to keep that at some other location.
Few minutes after take-off, Indians started getting up from their seats at various locations, and long queues started building up in front of all toilets.
After 8+ hours, the plane landed at Bangalore airport. All Indians started displaying restlessness immediately, and the moment the seat-belt sign went off, they started getting up and rushing here and there to download their baggage from overhead compartments. There was a major chaos everywhere. It took another fifteen minutes for the doors of the aircraft to open, and the Indians meanwhile formed queues and started playing tricks to overtake others, etc. If they could sit in the aircraft for eight hours, can't they sit for a few more minutes to get down from it in an orderly manner? If they are to alight from a private bus running in Kerala, then probably this rush is understandable, because the Kerala bus drivers are interested in reducing India's population by accelerating the bus while the last few alighting passengers are just about to cut contact with the vehicle, and so it is critical not to be the last passenger to get down from a Kerala private bus. But for an aircraft, we need not fear such a thing. Then why are they rushing? Is it for ensuring a top position in the queue in front of the pre-paid taxi counter? Probably.
Every visit to another country makes me feel more and more ashamed of our stinking, hopeless country. Why is our society like this? Why do Indians behave in this way? Irrespective of class, occupation, region or anything, aren’t all Indians fundamentally having the same filthiness in character? This week I read the excellent book Games Indians Play written by former IIM professor V Raghunathan, and the book starts with precisely this kind of questions and illustrating similar scenarios. The author lists 12 distinctive characteristics of Indianness: Low trustworthiness, Being privately smart and publicly dumb, Fatalistic outlook, Being too intelligent for our own good, Abysmal sense of public hygiene, Lack of self-regulation and sense of fairness, Reluctance to penalize wrong conduct in others, Mistaking talk for action, Deep-rooted corruption and a flair for free-riding, Inability to follow or implement systems, A sense of self-worth that is massaged only if we have the 'authority' to break rules and Propensity to look for loop-holes in laws. In subsequent chapters, he goes on analyzing more on these traits, giving several examples, narrated in humorous and immensely readable way. He uses game theory, behavioral economics and even quotes from Bhagavad Gita for his analysis and study. And yes, the solutions are well-known to Indians from the time of Gita itself, though never practiced in our society.
It was a pleasurable experience reading this book, as I myself have pondered on many of these "why"s many a time, and have gone through many of the experiences that the author has illustrated. This is a book that is a must-read for every Indian.
When I was in the US, a couple of times I happened to visit the Santa Clara County Library at Milpitas with my colleague. I was surprised to see the amazing collection of films and books they have there - Films ranging from Renoir's The River to Satyajit Ray's Ghare Bhaire, numerous classics from France, Germany, Korea, Iran, Japan and several other countries, and even recent Tamil commercial films - all of which people can take for viewing free of cost. We can pick up any number of books or CDs and I guess except for special cases, we can keep them with us until we finish reading/watching them (for unlimited period, that is). I am not very clear how this facility is provided free of cost, but if it is from the taxpayer's money, I would say that that is the best way of "giving back".
All the books and DVDs are arranged neatly and systematically in the library. What would have been the case if there was such a library in India? The place would have looked like a "fish market" and within a few hours after its opening, people would have grabbed everything from there. Tearing pages from books or even not returning books and DVDs would be commonplace in India. Indians feel thrilled when they hear the word "FREE"; Apparently, my colleague told me that majority of visitors to the library are NRIs. Indeed, I could see mostly Indians there, collecting as many CDs as they could hold in their hands, as if they are going to participate in some movie-watching competition. I am sure that Indians leaving Santa Clara for good may be looking forward to collect many books and CDs from the library as souvenirs.
Cut to Frankfurt airport during my return trip - After a pleasant flight from San Francisco to Frankfurt, I was following the direction-indicators to reach the counter for my connecting flight to Bangalore. There were 2 more hours to go for the boarding to start so I was walking at a slow pace when I saw that interesting phenomena - A long queue had been formed in front of two gates - The gates for flights to Bangalore and Hyderabad, of course. The queues flowed like snakes, causing inconvenience to all others. Indians standing ahead in the queue were staring at others coming to join behind with some sort of satisfaction brimming in their eyes.
Now, what is the reason for this queue formation when the boarding time was a good 2 hours away? Is it for entering the waiting hall in advance to grab those few chairs kept there? Or is it just because of the Indian addiction for waiting in queues and breaking them? I am not sure. Anyways, as a true Indian, I too joined the queue. Shortly, a young Indian (a software engineer, what else he could be?) came to me and asked: "Isn’t the boarding at 12:20? Why are you all standing in the queue already?". I felt a bit ashamed of myself, so just smiled sheepishly. He too joined the queue shortly, anyways.
While standing in the queue, I could hear a conversation from behind. I could gather that a US citizen was traveling to Bangalore as he intended to work there for an year, and he was having a chat with two Indian software engineers standing behind me in the queue. "I have heard Bangalore is a nice city. Beautiful with lots of gardens and all!", He said. I felt pity on him. The Indian engineers broke his hopes and informed him that Bangalore is a dirty city like most of the Indian cities. The Indian guy who was standing behind me then started discussing with the US guy about the great climate conditions and beauty of Austin, Texas, trying to speak in American accent. "How many years you have been living in Austin?" The US guy asked. "Er.. just a week! I went to visit my company headquarters there!", replied the Indian engineer. (A digression - Few weeks back, the CEO of my company announced a joint venture with an Indian company. The announcement was made when the CEO of the Indian company too was present on the stage. Soon after the announcement, the Indian CEO was asked to say a few words, and then we could see an amazing demonstration of what we call in Malayalam as "sayippine kanumbol kavathu marakkuka" - The Indian CEO literally stooped down in front of the American CEO, reminding of that infamous photograph of the 1990s which showed PV Narasimha Rao standing in front of Soniya Gandhi respectfully as if he was in front of God, and said something like this with a visible display of reverence: "We are honored and blessed that you thought about us for this joint venture, and I just hope that we would be able to meet your expectations...". We Indians either show "kavathu marakkal" (read as slave mentality) in front of foreigners, or try to create the impression that we are a step above other "insignificant" Indians).
After some time, the gate counter opened, and we were allowed to get inside and sit in the waiting hall. Another half an hour, and they announced boarding. They initially asked for people sitting in the back-rows to board, but all Indians promptly started rushing in. My seat was on row 52, but when I entered the aircraft I found that all Indians had already occupied their seats irrespective of their rows, and filled all luggage compartments with huge bags. There was no space in my overhead compartment to keep my bag, so I took help from an airhostess to keep that at some other location.
Few minutes after take-off, Indians started getting up from their seats at various locations, and long queues started building up in front of all toilets.
After 8+ hours, the plane landed at Bangalore airport. All Indians started displaying restlessness immediately, and the moment the seat-belt sign went off, they started getting up and rushing here and there to download their baggage from overhead compartments. There was a major chaos everywhere. It took another fifteen minutes for the doors of the aircraft to open, and the Indians meanwhile formed queues and started playing tricks to overtake others, etc. If they could sit in the aircraft for eight hours, can't they sit for a few more minutes to get down from it in an orderly manner? If they are to alight from a private bus running in Kerala, then probably this rush is understandable, because the Kerala bus drivers are interested in reducing India's population by accelerating the bus while the last few alighting passengers are just about to cut contact with the vehicle, and so it is critical not to be the last passenger to get down from a Kerala private bus. But for an aircraft, we need not fear such a thing. Then why are they rushing? Is it for ensuring a top position in the queue in front of the pre-paid taxi counter? Probably.
Every visit to another country makes me feel more and more ashamed of our stinking, hopeless country. Why is our society like this? Why do Indians behave in this way? Irrespective of class, occupation, region or anything, aren’t all Indians fundamentally having the same filthiness in character? This week I read the excellent book Games Indians Play written by former IIM professor V Raghunathan, and the book starts with precisely this kind of questions and illustrating similar scenarios. The author lists 12 distinctive characteristics of Indianness: Low trustworthiness, Being privately smart and publicly dumb, Fatalistic outlook, Being too intelligent for our own good, Abysmal sense of public hygiene, Lack of self-regulation and sense of fairness, Reluctance to penalize wrong conduct in others, Mistaking talk for action, Deep-rooted corruption and a flair for free-riding, Inability to follow or implement systems, A sense of self-worth that is massaged only if we have the 'authority' to break rules and Propensity to look for loop-holes in laws. In subsequent chapters, he goes on analyzing more on these traits, giving several examples, narrated in humorous and immensely readable way. He uses game theory, behavioral economics and even quotes from Bhagavad Gita for his analysis and study. And yes, the solutions are well-known to Indians from the time of Gita itself, though never practiced in our society.
It was a pleasurable experience reading this book, as I myself have pondered on many of these "why"s many a time, and have gone through many of the experiences that the author has illustrated. This is a book that is a must-read for every Indian.
