Dumb and Dumber

Work life has more or less kept me entwined with Europeans and Americans and though I love to listen to and digest other cultures and appreciate them, somehow I dont see this happening on the other side.Yeah yeah, I know this topic is probably one that everyone knows about and just acknowledges that its a hopeless issue that cannot be turned around and moves on with life, but hey, at least it provides for some comic relief!And in that spirit I decided to write in a few instances of anecdotes and snippets of conversations I’ve had with the other races of this planet.
Now lets cover a paraghs on the Europeans and then one on the American views.Starting off with the former, I was having this discussion with a very learned gentleman who was planning a vacation with his family and wanted some ideas about where he could go, so I suggested he go to Kerala in India or Maldives in the Indian Ocean if he was considering Asia.As I was telling him the glories of these locales, he very embarrasedly looks at me and says “Oh I would love to go and explore such exotic places, but you know the wife wouldnt be too happy with Asia as we are taking kids along”…so I gave him a look for one whole minute trying to understand what he was trying to tell me and looked at him quizically…’You know, its the whole crowds,language and the safety….”Again I merely looked at him as if he had lost his marbles, not for a moment did I expect a learned man who had travelled throughout the globe to actually say that he thought Asian countries were threatening to foreigners!
Yet another conversation with a European on the education systems across the world.I was telling him about the fact that some of the best management universities of the world existed in India and he looks at me and says “What?I am sure you are joking!” Now people, this was a man who has been working in India for the last 2 years and one would expect him to spread the wings of his brain with respect to his environment if at all he wanted to ‘fit in’.I merely looked at him and gave him the facts, an IIM in India has repute in terms of education as well as brand equivalent to a Wharton or a Harvard and the ISB churns out students who earn the highest in the world, in comparison to any other university in the world.I could actually go on about so many other instances but its too tiresome for my brain to physically playback such ignorance of the ‘better’ races as they claim.
Im not as much in mocking of the Americans as I am of the Europeans as what I mostly dont understand about their views of India is that they think we are the land of the elephants and the snakes, the land of that brought about the very healthy yoga, and the land that started the Krishna movement(funnily a lot of druggies and crazed out people abroad are the ones that follow this cult).
Let me surprise all ye ignorant people of this planet, Asians(and more so Indians) have produced some of the most powerful and well educated people in the world,u could find a Dior here as much as you would find in New York,the landscapes in these countries are much more beautiful than even Switzerland and we possess BMWs and Audis’ as well.And we do speak in other languages apart from Hindi.