Humour
"Arrey Bhai!
Bhee Inbhented Ebhrithing!"
SUHEL SETH, Pune Mirror
So, we can now safely assume that India and Indians have invented ... well ... e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g.
I don't know why we will have to wait to see Hawaizaada, since the folks at the Indian Science Congress have told us that India invented aeroplanes much before the Wright Brothers.
Algebra has now been swiftly transferred to Indian ownership from the Arabs and we have already cast aside the Greek and owned some wretched Pythagoras' theorem.
We all knew we had invented the zero.
We could also have invented the textile loom, and I have a feeling we did, but we will have to wait for the next edition of the Indian Science Congress.
Since Steve Jobs came to India as a hippie, we can now own every single Apple invention.
Chinese medicines were born in the alleys of Calcutta's China Town, given that Nelson Wang of China Garden gave the world the Chicken Manchurian.
Sukh Ram can claim credit for inventing the mobile telephone and the modern-day SUV was invented by the duo of Krishna and Arjuna as they were heading to war with their cousins.
To make Owaisi feel good, we can now say that Islam was also born in India and to make Sadhvi feel elated, we can say that every child born on this planet is born Hindu but then gets converted by some really wicked people.
While we are it, why don't we claim Queen Elizabeth as ours? She was working for the Missionaries of Charity before she was called upon to perform some Royal duties, which she has done with adroitness.
Modern day cinema was also invented in India with the bioscope, which became famous as the device that lured sets of brothers to meet and then disappear at the Kumbh Mela every once in a while.
Egypt can wait while we lay claim to papyrus as can the inventors of the modern day printing press, as we know it.
NASA was actually housed in the premises of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, Bangalore (which by the way can barely make any aircraft fly) and was then moved to America once Columbus discovered it.
And, that too, thanks to India.
Columbus the bloke was looking for us and then found that silly country whose president we shall welcome to our Republic Day Parade as chief guest on January 26, 2015.
But then we as a country are smart. We will blame South Africa for racism because we have none here. So what if, once in a while, we abuse the fine men and women from the Northeast by referring them to as ‘slits’ or ‘chinks‘? We didn't have a caste system until it was established somewhere else in the world.
Corruption was never our forte and still isn't. We are a functioning democracy where registering a complaint in a police station for the poorest of the poor is a nightmare.
Our governance is so strong that only Indians, when they go abroad, get arrested for insider trading … like Rajat Gupta. No Indian in India has ever indulged in insider trading.
We have such clean people in public life. People like Mayawati, Jayalalithaa and A Raja have had a stellar record in probity and good governance. It was an aberration that Sukh Ram, once our telecom minister, was found to have Rs 30 million in cash under his mattress.
We have never had riots. We are a peace-loving nation that has quickly forgotten the Bhagalpur blindings, the Nellie massacre and the Sikh pogroms. We abhor dynasties, which is why no dynasty has ever ruled India. That was and remains a coincidence.
We encourage philanthropy as long as it benefits us. We hate awards and our sports remain untainted. There has never been an issue with fixing in cricket and if there is then we have to blame Hansie Cronje for it and not some our own icons.
Yes, let's begin to re-write history.
Being in denial is in our DNA. If something is wrong, it has been handed down to us. If something is right, it was Made in India.
Jai Hind.
[Courtesy: Pune Mirror]
January 12, 2015
Conversation about this article
1: Kaala Singh (Punjab), January 13, 2015, 1:55 PM.
How come a country which claims to have invented everything cannot manufacture anything on its own now. One keeps hearing about "foreign collaborations" and "transfer of technology" and "indigenization ratio" in everything that is made here. What went wrong?