The smartass of the world

One very conscending argument that one hears about Indians from Indians is this "but u must admit we are a very intelligent race"..And to cover up the case they will bring out examples of "making lassi using washing machine"..or everyday "smartness" that a normal Indian must get to to go through normal life (starting from smartly calculation of the bus timings to bargaining with the sandwich maker ) . And to end it all they will challenge any foreigner to go through the "complicated" Indian life if they considered themselves so "superior"...

Everytime I hear this argument I feel like laughing and crying at the same time. Laughing because of the sheer hollowness of the argument and crying because of the amount of self delusion my countrymen are so proud of...

I frankly dont consider ourselves to particularly smart because of the following reasons:

1. We have somehow made such a complex set of rules for ourselves(dont eat that , dont touch that, start on this foot , jump on that day, say hi to so and so every half an hour etc etc) that these rules have taken precedence over actual living. I would say that these rules are logically correct and quite great on paper (infact they are the best rules in the world) but translated to ground they have not managed to keep up with advances in knowledge.

Instead of simplifying those rules what Indians have done is to complicate them further with a tacit understanding that if you are rich and powerful then there exists a loophole. So while on one side the ordinary person(read middle class) is always in a moral dilems his richer counterpart does not posess any such quandry.

The logic of actions that flows down is that "rules are subjectively proportional to the lightness of your wallet". This is not a logic thats natural but a logic that has emerged from the clash of complex rules with a desire for fetterless living.

This lack of a smooth and ethic based practicality with that of ideological theory is the greatest reminder of the utter stupidity of Indians.

2. Lack of Basics- As a race forever enamoured with "showbaazi" somewhere there is a severe tendency to forget or just ignore groundlevel reality. The decision makers have always had an enormous capacity to delude themselves and hence never solve grassroot level problems.

So while in ancient times the Brahmin practised high class mathematics , the general public so much never had a basic sence of numbers and measurement. There was a disconnect between ordinary living and the ivory tower.

This is very evident today if you take a closer look at the industrial base of India.

While every economy first stabilises bottom up, ie starting with a self sufficiency in infrastructure and then moving on to luxury..India has always started with satellites first without building enough safety pin industries. To push the analogy further while food processing has grown in spurts , agriculture has yet to see the light of the day.

This disconnect is even seen in daily life . While we have students carrying out advance research into civil engineering, mass housing and roads are shabby , both functionally as well as structurally.

This disconnect is not due to lack of resources but due to a inherent snob value which somehow makes an "academic" a member of higher pantheon of Gods and he is defiled by his foray into solving day to day problems.

With the result that we have mechanical engineers who are scared of opening up a bicyle. If one cant call it stupidity then wat do u call it?