‘It happens only in India’ – so goes the refrain. Because we are extra special. Yes we are. In our smugness and in our conceit. In our bloated sense of Self that will stop short of nothing less than the status of the next ‘superpower’ – without anything to show for it though. Wonder where all this actually comes from? Chala Murari Hero Banane. Years ago, we were told, we had colonized Silicon Valley. Our software writers, the best in the world, had placed India in the world map of rising powers. So much had it impressed the leaders of this country that they decided that all their higher education would be geared to producing more and more such labour for the new global economy (no offense meant to the software people). However that is another story. Right now I want to tell a different one – partly out of frustration but partly because I consider it my duty to forewarn others who might be in for a similar experience as mine. Continue reading On Passport Divas, ‘We are Like That Only, But We Want to be Superpower’! →