During Gandhi's days in India there was a slogan called - Be Indian, Buy Indian. This was a direct message to British occupation to quit India and starve them of the economic benefits derived by domestics purchasing international aka British goods sold at premium.
These days America is realizing that the language that is considered their official, is spelled better by kids that have sprung from natives of India. So the slogan now for non Indian Americans could well be -
Bee Indian, By Indians.
As in Indian parents are producing large quantities of offspring that can spell better than any other ethnicity in the USA.
There is some mild furor over the outcome of this event what with the last decade of the National Spelling Bee being dominated by these geeky, glassy eyed spellers who prove that while brains are quite useful to memorize vast quantity of data the Indian gene pool might also occasionally produce a beautiful creature worthy of winning some pagent that some portion of the populace obsesses about. As in Miss USA.
Indian diaspora as in the spores of erstwhile Indians that have spread in the North American continent have continued to excel in a lot of academic and now more non academic fields with a fair representation running for seats in local, state and federal government.
That their heritage happens to be from India is still a subject of much discussion not much different from when Obama became America's first black President. While at some level it is a historic achievement if we are to truly become class and raceless then we need to simply move on and not fixate on the origin of the tribe that made it to a particular station or eminence rather celebrate that certain amongst our sapiens crowd are uniquely gifted.
What we attach importance to and how it might benefit the larger society is crucial. If someone swims the fastest I am not sure we need to be agog about it, same as if someone can spell any word that you throw at them. There is a practical side to humanity and neither achievement defines any logical correlation to how that person might fare in the business of being simply HUMAN.
These days America is realizing that the language that is considered their official, is spelled better by kids that have sprung from natives of India. So the slogan now for non Indian Americans could well be -
Bee Indian, By Indians.
As in Indian parents are producing large quantities of offspring that can spell better than any other ethnicity in the USA.
There is some mild furor over the outcome of this event what with the last decade of the National Spelling Bee being dominated by these geeky, glassy eyed spellers who prove that while brains are quite useful to memorize vast quantity of data the Indian gene pool might also occasionally produce a beautiful creature worthy of winning some pagent that some portion of the populace obsesses about. As in Miss USA.
Indian diaspora as in the spores of erstwhile Indians that have spread in the North American continent have continued to excel in a lot of academic and now more non academic fields with a fair representation running for seats in local, state and federal government.
That their heritage happens to be from India is still a subject of much discussion not much different from when Obama became America's first black President. While at some level it is a historic achievement if we are to truly become class and raceless then we need to simply move on and not fixate on the origin of the tribe that made it to a particular station or eminence rather celebrate that certain amongst our sapiens crowd are uniquely gifted.
What we attach importance to and how it might benefit the larger society is crucial. If someone swims the fastest I am not sure we need to be agog about it, same as if someone can spell any word that you throw at them. There is a practical side to humanity and neither achievement defines any logical correlation to how that person might fare in the business of being simply HUMAN.
I see you have a bee in your bonnet of the right kind!
ReplyDeleteIt is funny that the Brits saw bonnets and trunks as being car parts as well as pieces of clothing.
ReplyDelete