Lovely, thought provoking article from Faisal. It is time we took a harder look at ourselves and corrected the wrongs.This will take time and conviction... yet we should try all the time.Ask ourselves before every act,are we doing the right thing?
If someone call Delhi(or any other Indian city for that matter) a "dirty city", there is nothing to get offended. It is plain truth and we responsible for the mess we made.
But if someone think eating with hands is uncivilized, it is sheer ignorance. If that someone is a popular host and her opinion is expressed on media, it is highly objectionable. People like her need to be taught that western culture is no yardstick to measure civilzation / culture and she is being stu8*id when she think cutlery shared by many is better than own hands. Or dry paper is better in cleaning the shh**i that water and soap. These are lessons every american need to be taught and it is no harm if Indians doesn't appreciate her comments.
Good article Faisal! I agree we are hypersensitive about perceived insults and turn a complete blind eye to our real shortcomings - lack of civic sense, road sense, basic manners, mistreatment of women, corrupt and high-handed legal system, hundreds of other things that make us a third world country.
But that said, foreigners definitely have a racist bias against us. Maybe that subtle racism underlying factual statements like lack of toilets, etc is what provokes the strong reaction.
But we are ourselves responsible for our image. Until we start improving ourselves we will never improve our country. Also, we have these sick filmmakers and art film actors who cash in on the stereotype snake-charmer, Indians-have-evil-culture, anti-hindu type movies like Mira Nair, Shabana Azmi, Nandita Sen, etc who make their own names by dragging India's name through the mud. Compare that with Chinese who only show good things about themselves in movies.
We are a hopelessly divided country on many planes, we put other Indians down to move ahead and will sell our country and its image for our personal fame and fortune.
No wonder everybody is taking cheap shots at us. We are ourselves to blame.
