‘We come in peace, but we’ll take your jobs’

One of the easiest ways to impress your host in another country is to read up the Wikipedia page for that country and specially memorise the small trivial bits.

Interesting historical trivia, festivals, local cuisine, et al. I personally believe quizzers, who are otherwise anti-social, near-autistic nerds, get invited to dinners more often abroad because they know local trivia. Of course, one does not want to ask “So did your grandparents cheer when they marched Anne Frank to the concentration camps?” to one’s Dutch host. Quizzers are quite capable of doing that sort of thing, so overall, it tends to balance out the number of invitations they get.

About a decade ago, I was invited by the leader of a local Boy Scout troop to make a small presentation about India at a church in San Antonio, Texas. These were mostly 11-13 year olds and unlike their charming Southern parents, they weren’t quite trained

in political correctness yet. When they saw me connect my laptop to the projector, one (non-blond, I must add) kid put his hand up and asked me how come India had computers? Didn’t they, like, still have elephants and things?  This not being India, the leader didn’t immediately reprimand the boy rudely and ask him to keep quiet. He told him that India was quite modern and that he should listen to my presentation before asking questions.

Till the dawn of the noughties, I was mostly clearing misconceptions. No, we didn’t ride on pachyderms or kowtow to exotic kings who hunted tigers. No, we weren’t just the “mysterious east that focused on spirituality instead of technology”. That sort of thing. When confronted with hard facts about poverty and lack of infrastructure, I took refuge in the glorious past and blamed the evils of colonialism for our decline. I would also tell them that they should be thankful to us for the zero and um… plastic surgery.

But of late, I find myself in a different sort of situation when I’m abroad. I get the general feeling that I’m looked at as the messenger of this advanced alien civilisation that colonises the world by outsourcing. “We come in peace, but we will take your jobs” sort of thing. Along with China, India is now this Force from the East that is threatening to be that tortoise in that race with the western hare. Slow and steady for a while, and now on steroids.

For a change, I am now underplaying India. No, we don’t have flying cars yet. No, we are not taught differential calculus in pre-KG. No, we are not trained in “Take the infidel Americans’ jobs by force of intellectual will and lower billing rates” camps in the Himalayas. But one has to admit. It feels better to underplay India to a scared audience than praise it to the skies to a sceptical one!