The Global Indian

Do a Google on Top Indian Business News stories and if you're an Indian, it'd be heartening. Probably the best time to show off your conveniently buried, partiotic fervour and Indian leanings.

So our President's Vision 2020 seems to be in full swing if the news reports are anything to go by. Well-known family owned, trusted and globally respected business houses are literally and figuratively flying high.

What does it mean really, this show of economic bullishness on the global trade exchange?

• That we're smart, hard working and result-oriented visionaries? Sure. We always were. Just turn the pages of history and a lot of those attributes will come shining through. It's another matter that somewhere donw that historical line, we lost our way to other empire building territorial badshahs.
• That we're actually fed up of being mired in our own conservative mind-sets and we're finally doing the Houdini's act? That too I guess.
• That it's just a cycle of economies? I'm not an economist but am sure there is a term for this hypnotic aspect of the rise and rise of a nation and it's not about the 'world being flat' theory.
• That the burgeoning urban youth are urbane, ambitious and focused? Perhaps...because that is debatable as all socio-economic issues really are.
• That we're already facing a host of socio-economic issues which were already prevalent, but today, are highlighted with green and red marker pens by our vigilante media and thus some good things do come out of it - the Jessica Lall case in point.
• And so the list of achievements can be brandished like a newly acquired knighthood. We could all be dubbed 'Sir, the global Indian'. (Ironically, such a title also comes from those who once were our subjugators...sigh!)

But what does this really mean, the billion-dollar deals, the spirit of global trade and business leadership, the stock exchange surges and continued upward climb and well, basic prosperity?

• The man on the street still doesn't have footpaths to walk on.
• Potable water gets mixed with sewage water.
• Basic education where teachers actually teach is a dream like putting an Indian on the moon (just announced by ISRO that it will happen in 2020 or 2030 depending on when they get the vehicle there first that will transport the moonwalker).
• Women in villages are still the beasts of burden - walk miles for water, tend to children, work to earn and feed the family, fornicate to keep the 'man of the house' happy and get raped all in one lifetime. (Of course I'm generalising and of course this isn't true for so many millions et al, but it happens)
• Kids still work in beedi factories and fireworks factories and have TB and god knows what other ailments
• A city like Bangalore still doesn't have a decent airport
• The much sought after engineer today will still say, 'Myself Eklavyaarasunambiarramesh blahblahblah from Digboi' and bridge conference calls geographies apart and try and decipher code
• Our tigers are dying and there're not many who're crying about it

Should I go on? Of course not. I need to be optimistic and realistic. How can I be so dystopic and rave and rant instead of just celebrating the cause of everything that's right?

Sigh! Guess Utopia is around the corner. There...I can see Sir Global Indian with the flag pole in his hands accompanied by the loud applause of the world.

Clap clap clap!