India, in your face and tranquil in the same breath; as an Indian who has spent a large part of his life in the West, I have borne witness to the utter confusion that India elicits in the West.  India has defied simple Western classifications where the West has found it easier to hide behind tongue-in-cheek references like – “there is no other place like it, for better or worse!”  And even that was left to the spiritual seeker or the eager hide-behind-a-picture-the-Taj tourist, to demystify.

As a serious business destination, it has largely been derided for its poor infrastructure and the flavor-of-the-eternal Indian sense of time.  Until now, when it can no longer be ignored.  As the West slowly cedes the leadership of the global economy to (shudder!) its one time colonies, it finds it difficult to look past its learned colonial superiority, even if an African American is the leader of the free-world!

      India, when looked through the eyes of the business traveler is very hard to mock.  “If we left, the country would plunge into anarchy or be run my thugs in psychedelic uniforms – the developing world cannot handle democracy”, went the usual colonial refrain.  Well, true for some, but not India!  India did one better, running the largest and arguably the most complex democracy in the world.  A Muslim President, a Catholic King-maker, a Sikh Prime Minister and a Communist Speaker – the Romans knew nothing of complexity!

The West cannot help pointing the well meaning finger or their mildly condescending efforts at identifying with the Indian poor and we can’t put aside our insecurities of being a past colonial subject and all its protestations.  But as one of the oldest civilizations in the world and the birth place of all Eastern religions, India can scarcely be shrugged off as a new economy like America!  A distinct architectural style, deep traditions of classical music and a bewildering diversity of letter and expressions demand respect even of the strictest purist.

      Columbus set sail in search of India, 200 years later the Internet finally discovered India for the West.  (Incidentally that larger journey tracks the economic baton being passed from Europe to America to India – just a thought!)  And now their jobs are getting Bangalored!  There is apparently no end to things a bunch of educated folks, half-way across the world can do if only you hook them up to the world. 

“But that accent, you got to give us the Accent!?!”  Okay, especially if you see the nothing-short-of-heroic effort by the American policy mavens not to giggle when Pranab-da speaks!  It is our way of keeping the enemy guessing – that and testing a ballistic missile in the midst of full war hysteria and claiming that once we launch this thing, there is no telling where or what it will hit.  Clever, very clever! 

      “And sports, how can a nation of a billion people not produce eleven guys who can kick a ball!?!”  You can say that only if you are not English, because Cricket we can play!  Our excuse is that we dominate any sport that requires thinking and no running – we find all that running around rather undignified!

      How do you think Churchill will find India as he came back in his new avatar as an accent coach for the BPO industry?  He will have to settle his bar tab at the Bangalore club first, they tend to be stickler for that kind of stuff!  But what he will find is a country that is remarkably like his own at its core, in values that the West has appropriated for its own – obfuscated as they may be in India’s myriad expressions.  For all you know he might settle-in with an Indian Made Foreign Liquor (and you thought the bureaucracy had no sense of humor!) and actually like.

(That this view would hold China, on the other side of the values divide, is consequent.  I just call it like I see it, although I can’t say I disagree with that conclusion!)