I love my India

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There has recently been a furore about an article by Joel Stein in the once-venerated TIME magazine. 

This is not the first time someone has denigrated India. Another instance is a blog entry authored by another American, Sean Paul Kelly. A fitting reply to such stupidity is this.

Besides, Joel Stein has actually denigrated himself more than he has denigrated Indians, which becomes clear if you read the article carefuly. Joel Stein should, but does not, understand that culture is never frozen in time; once the population composition changes for whatever reason, the square pegs need to adapt to their now round holes. Which the Indians have done, exceedingly well, by Stein's own admission. Darwin and Evolution is on their side! Others who cannot adapt, like Stein, get out of the place. And moan.

Stein, notice, says that the A&P I shoplifted from is now an Indian grocery. What credibility can one attribute to a self-accclaimed shoplifter with other shoplifters as friends? Further, he says during his time, when the Indians started arriving, they had slightly deteriorating, post–WW II housing and now they have many Indians, many of whom, fittingly for a town called Edison, are inventors and engineers and sometime after I left, the town became a maze of ... housing developments. That's a bad thing? Then what is good? Becoming rich and having mistresses who live like hookers of yore? Or being part of a gang or being a gay or a transvestite hooker? Choi the Mayor knew something about Stein -- which of these changes did he allege that Stein was a participant in and Stein went quiet on?

Alas, TIME is no longer the kind of magazine it was, it now caters to half-wit Americans whose span of attention is that of 3-year olds, and the only kind of writing they now disseminate is the kind that can penetrate the Americans' thick skulls within the nano-second attention span they have. Joel Stein knows his market, that is the only good thing one can say about him.

The fitting way to respond to dissemination of such stupidity is to disseminate writings such as this equally widely.

So here we are! Are we up to this task, of telling the world about the real India? Or about allowing such tripe and drivel go around the world?


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Rajesh Haldipur
Proud to be an Indian  
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