Reflections on India

Few points about India

1. Anyone claiming to know India well is either foolish or lying? (This includes Indians). India is diverse on all counts imaginable (color, language, wealth, urbanization, etc). Every permutation will throw up large number of people.

2. India consistently disappoints the pessimistic and the optimistic. If you see the bad side (poverty, chaos, etc) it is easy to bet that this country is going nowhere but this is just few scenes of long movie. There are other scenes and its easy to be absolutely bullish.

3. Think in absolute numbers as well and not just percentages. 3% in India translates to lot of people. It is more than the adult population of many countries. Apply this to any metric you will get large numbers on either side of the bell curve. So in India you will find 3% of the smartest and also the dumbest (in IQ terms) both in huge numbers. You will see these (only a subset of) 3% migrating to western countries and be hugely successful.

As per me the only way to deal with India is to accept its all hues and colors.