What comes to you mind when you hear "INDIA"?

[rahul_sharma]

Colonialism, slums, sweat shops, pollution, religious diversity, barely concealed hostility between India and Pakistan, tea, fakirs, Taj Mahal, Siddharta Gautama, Mahatma Gandhi, Mughal empire, paneer, chapati, curry, Ganges, Baghavad Gita, Krisna, Brahman, holy cows, thuggees, Kali Ma, Bollywood movies, beautiful women, temple dancers, Tantra, traffic chaos, monsun, the Jungle Book(s), child labour, Cricket, Parsi, Ganesa, Sanskrit, Indo-European languages, post-colonial literature...

Yeah, that's approximately what first comes to mind when I hear the word "India".

seems like you are really trying to understand the ancient, continuous, unending drama of India.

 

[rahul_sharma]

sorry for the limited choices. I know we can't put limit to choices when it comes to India. It's so vast and diverse. Due to academic reasons, i am trying to understand international mind on various forums about India on these 10 limited options. Hinduism, Poverty and Land of mysteries are topping on religious threads everywhere (just like here). When it comes to economy related threads poverty is replaced by Next major economic power.

Some misconceptions are fading away and new Image is building up with the rise of India's cultural "Soft Power" status.

 

[The Mighty Sword]

Since the op didn't place "other " in the vote many cannot vote.

When I "India" I think of curry.

 

[Eudaimonist]

I don't get the Land of Mysteries option. What mysteries?


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[MorkandMindy]

What comes to mind when you think of India?

Intelligence
A lot of programming is now done in India as well as many other things

Efficiency
Indians use on average 1/34th as much oil as Americans; we should learn from them

 

[The Mighty Sword]

Back to the thread,

When I think of India I think of irritating telemarketers, with english so bad I feel like I'm in a 7-11, or a dirty gas station, thank you come again.

 

[Penumbra]

I don't get the Land of Mysteries option. What mysteries?


eudaimonia,

Mark

I was king of thinking the same thing. What makes one country more mysterious than another? In the west, what was called the "orient" was always looked upon as being mysterious mainly because it was poorly understood.

Though in some ways I suppose India can be mysterious. Some areas of the globe are going to be more mysterious than others if people have been living there for a long time. I mean, if you take America as an example, it doesn't have that long of a written history. Settlers came a few hundred years ago and before that it was inhabited by a rather sparse population of native Americans that, while rich in history, are not as thick with information as thousands of years of philosophy on the Indian subcontinent. Some of the older parts of the written and developed world, namely Mesopotamia and India, as well as Europe, northern Africa and China, could arguably be more mysterious than some of the newer places in the world. Combine age with a huge population and you have something mysterious like India.

 

[Arthra]

What comes to mind when I hear "India"?

I am reminded of the poem written by Walt Whitman "Passage to India"

Passage to India!
Lo, soul! seest thou not God’s purpose from the first?
The earth to be spann’d, connected by net-work,
The people to become brothers and sisters,
The races, neighbors, to marry and be given in marriage,
The oceans to be cross’d, the distant brought near,
The lands to be welded together.​

(A worship new, I sing;
You captains, voyagers, explorers, yours!
You engineers! you architects, machinists, your!
You, not for trade or transportation only,
But in God’s name, and for thy sake, O soul.)​

 

[Eudaimonist]

Efficiency
Indians use on average 1/34th as much oil as Americans; we should learn from them

Do you mean we should do this?

I'd prefer a little less "efficiency". (Galt help us if we had to take Amtrak to work and back!)

Any nation that has more poverty is going to have a lower gasoline consumption per person. This is not something we should learn from. I think we're on a better track with creating fuel efficient hybrid cars, and hopefully fully electrical cars are on the way.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[sidhe]

when I hear "India", I recall a lovely moment from Fawlty Towers:

The Colonel: "I...I must have been very keen on her. I took her to see INDIA!"
Mr. Fawlty: "You what?"
The Colonel: "AT THE OVAL!"

 

[praisehimalleluia]

I love the food! Spicy food is the greatest there!

 

[BruceDLimber]

when I hear "India", I recall a lovely moment from Fawlty Towers:

The Colonel: "I...I must have been very keen on her. I took her to see INDIA!"
Mr. Fawlty: "You what?"
The Colonel: "AT THE OVAL!"

So sorry to disappoint you, but he was a major!



Bruce

 

[sidhe]

So sorry to disappoint you, but he was a major!



Bruce

I knew he was an officer.

 

[HumbleSiPilot77]

Apu from Simpsons and Seven Elevens. Honest hardworking people with funny accents. No pun intended.

 

[Rasta]

I thought of Shiva, so I guess that counts as Hinduism.

BOOM SHIVA!

 

[HumbleSiPilot77]

...Galt help us if we had to ...

Who or what is Galt? A god replacement?

 

[Minty]

Who or what is Galt? A god replacement?

Is Galt not a toy manufacturer?

Galt Toys

 

[Minty]

I have to admit to not being "in love with India". You know there are some countries that seem to work their magic on you, regardless of where you live, and your greatest wish is to visit there, and you seem to love most of the things from that country (food, clothes, music, films, etc...), you also seem to feel a pull, somewhere deep in your pysche... I've sadly never felt that for India.

Don't get me wrong, the country is lovely, and I'm sure that most of the people are, too... it just has never "grabbed" me by the heart, as I know it does with many people. I wish it had

 

[HumbleSiPilot77]

Is Galt not a toy manufacturer?

Galt Toys

Mattel help us ... I don't know...

 

[HumbleSiPilot77]

I have to admit to not being "in love with India". You know there are some countries that seem to work their magic on you, regardless of where you live, and your greatest wish is to visit there, and you seem to love most of the things from that country (food, clothes, music, films, etc...), you also seem to feel a pull, somewhere deep in your pysche...

Can you say GREECE?

Though I heard it is very easy to adopt kids from India and China... We are going to be looking at adoption down the line some day, it is wonderful to give a child home.