Monday, May 20, 2013

Why not Indian Indian??

I have often read the excellence of the Second or Third generation immigrant Indians abroad.  At various forums the question then arises Why is it American or British or Canadian preceding the word Indian when the praise is being showered? Why is it not the "Indian" for whom we here these words of praise.  The question is really not for the readers, but it certainly is hitting at the Education System and the Mad Race for the Marks / Percentages being forced on the young generation.

The reason why it is Indian American or Indian British or Indian Canadian rather than Indian Indian - In India the talent is suppressed under the weight of expectations to study and get better marks.  Away the kids are encouraged in their research, marks are not the only criteria, innovation and entrepreneurial capabilities are supported.  In India, if someone would want to do such a work, they would be ridiculed by close circle and would be called "Jerk or Maniac".

It is really ridiculous the way things work in India.  I remember a case where one of my known once developed an FM transceiver that could work in the periphery of 500 meters and could have been used to good effect for communication in the hostel, but he was ridiculed a lot by the rest of the hostel guys and college crowd. Why, because he was a Management stream student and developing such a device was not supposed to be in his study area.  He would have junked it right there, but we helped him by adopting it for our Biking trips where we fit it in our bikes and helmets to be able to communicate while going on Bike tours...yeah - low cost communication device that used to run on bike Battery...but where did that innovation go?? down the drain...

Another case where one of my colleague developed codes to lock screens permanently for interactive logins if someone tried to impersonate you.  This could have been hailed better had it taken up by some security company. But again the guy was ridiculed by his team members and the office staff for doing that, why because he was supposed to be a network administrator and not a programmer to do so.

These are just two of the many cases that I have witnessed in my span of life I spent in India till date.  Yeah - Interesting point I thought I should mention - Two of my papers that were ridiculed in India by a leading industry body were selected for presentation abroad in annual conference of a leading Non Profit Organization that has an ISO standard to its credit.  Funny, ain't it :))

Well now that's where we Indians are - excel abroad, but ridiculed in our own homeland...

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