FAIRER THAN THE FAIREST? - INSIGHT INDIA

India 2008 has discovered an instant coffee version of cricket. With international players. And cheerleaders imported from the U.S. Like everything globalizing India touches, the IPL has turned cricket to gold, raking in millions of dollars.
Half way through the play-offs newschannels reported that at one venue two black cheerleaders were asked to sit out.
And I thought of all the Indian matrimonial ads where almost everyone wants a fair spouse.
And I thought of the huge sales of fairness lotions in this country.
Then I remembered the time an Indian (whom I thought I knew well) took me to a Starbucks in California. No empty tables outside. I sat with a young African. We chatted. He was from Senegal. An IT executive. And smart. The Indian brought our coffee, handed me mine, and, without saying a word, walked off to find another table for himself. Crude. Rude. What's his problem? I wondered. Deep-seated pretensions? Delusions of fairness? Folly?
Neither globalization nor all the fairness lotions in the world can make India a European country.
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BUNGLE BEES OVER BANGALORE

Election day, today, has put a stop to the buzzing of the bungle bees. For weeks the buzzing had grown louder and louder - to noise pollution levels. All bee parties claimed they were responsible for making Bangalore an IT hub.

None of them admitted that if they and officialdom had any clue in the 90's of where computers were headed, the chances were that IT would have been hit by taxes and corruption. Or if those bees (from more than one party) had succeeded in their long years of struggle to end the teaching of English, IT had no chance in India. And no bunglers gave credit to the talent and patience of young Indians that helped the great leap in software.

So the big election issue before voters in Bangalore and the state is to decide which of the bungler bee parties is slightly less unbelievable. But that seems a question impossible to answer!
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CAN CRICKET CAUSE A COMPUTER CRISIS? - INSIGHT INDIA

Many of today's well-known Indian cricket players came up the hard way. By breaking neighborhood windows. Parents defended their right to do so against all comers, including the ill and elderly. Those parents' only concern was the physical well-being of their children.

With the new Indian Premier League's auction buying up cricket players for up to 1.5 million dollars, the situation has changed dramatically. Parents - who hope to float in the moolah - are encouraging every little twerp (who needs his mother to pull up his white cricket trousers) to go out and crack the ball. And windows.

What does this trend mean for India's future? Will it be Cricket! Cricket! all the way? Will we in the years ahead have to outsource software jobs to America? Very sad. A sure way to economic suicide - as Americans are slowly learning today.
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CRAZY GLOBALIZATION - INSIGHT INDIA

Imagine a country where any time mobs start running on the streets. And the stoning and burning begins. For any reason. Like sharing water resources with a neighbor state in the same country. Or antipathy to migrants from other parts of the country. Imagine a country where no political party feels any guilt about going on a rampage in towns and destroying public and private property and hurting people. Imagine that country building more and more glass malls and offices. Perfect targets for violence.

That's globalizing India today. And if that's not crazy, what is? (For more India Realities stories see www.myspace.com/india_realities & www.ibibo.com/wahpmji)

FACTS ABOUT INDIAN FIGURES

Statistics can often give a glimpse of the true story, provided figures are not dreamt up. Indian literacy figures tend to include those who can scratch their name on a black board. The poverty line should be held at the waist; but Indian statistics tends to hold it at ankle level. The result is that utterly poor families earning two dollars a day are above the poverty line.

But figures told facts on the day newspapers bugled that 4 Indians were among the top ten Forbes billionaires. Inside pages of the same papers said India had more polio cases now than any other country...and infant mortality had risen above the levels of even poorer countries like Bangladesh.

Wealthy Indians (who don't have to worry about polio or infant mortality) are celebrating non-stop, pretending they are not here but in the West.
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ADVANCED TRAFFIC SYSTEMS IN INDIA INC. - INSIGHT INDIA

As globalization progresses traffic on Indian roads operates on the principle of optimal use of minimal space. In general the idea, you can say, is that in space a rat can get through a cat must try to.
So...if there's space a pedestrian can barely squeeze through, that's where a two-wheeler must try to shoot through. If there's space enough for a two-wheeler to go through, that's where an autorickshaw must try to swerve through. If there's space enough for an autorickshaw to go through, that's where a car must try to race through. If there's space enough for a car to go through, that's where bigger public transport and heavy vehicles must try to bulldoze through. On Indian roads you see daredeviltry at its peak.
Of course, accidents are inevitable due to such optimal utilization of space. In a country rising on the wings of globalization, that doesn't really matter.

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KICKING IT UP ABROAD - INSIGHT INDIA

A recent news report spotlighted the affluence of Indians in Santa Clara county, Silicon Valley. I remembered 1998. IT boom time! The Bay Area atmosphere bubbled like champagne. If you saw a group of excited Indians huddled over latte and muffins in a Starbucks they could be talking of a start-up. Or buy-out rumours. A 'bought-out' young man in his early thirties laughed and told me: 'Here, Indian millionaires are as common as dandruff!' This is great! I thought.

But soon I noticed that propensities hadn't changed. Like the craving to show-off among each other. An upwardly mobile Bay Indian had to buy a BMW. And then a mansion on an upscale hillside. And proclaim both acquisitions to friend and foe.

Another thing I noted was the tendency to gravitate into 'back home' affinity groups. An Andhra group. A Maharashtrian group. And so on.

But the next propensity was even more telling. At the Naz, a Hindi movie house, the last show crowd of Indians, Pakistanis etc. left the place a junkyard of paper glasses, wrappers and pop-corn bags. What was unfair was that the same people wouldn't leave a bit of litter at the 26-theatre Century 26 showing Western movies. Why not? Simply, because they would not be allowed to get away with it.

The news report mentions an Indian entrepreneur's comment that Indians flourish in the U.S. not just because of education, but because the diversity of India's people prepared them better for dealing with America's diversity. I wonder if that is blatant obfuscation or the man has forgotten home - the endless battles that go on over water, caste, religion, language and you-name-it. (For more INDIA REALITIES stories see www.myspace.com/india_realities)