I went to my home town last weekend and met somebody on the way. In train, when I adjusted my bag and sat on my seat, a lean and slender foreign girl came and sat in front of me. After a few minutes only, I started talking to her (It is my habit to talk to co-passengers, irrespective of their gender, to make my journey interesting). When I came to know that she is from France, my first question was, “Do you understand English”? How foolish…. Otherwise how could she have come to Railway Station alone (is there anybody in Delhi who understands French??). Anyways, after some time I got to know that her destination was Agra – Land of Taj Mahal and mine was a little ahead of that. She asked me, “Whether this train ever reaches Agra on time”? It baffled me to my core, how could she say this despite being just few weeks old in this country. I queried it and she replied, some of her friends had come to the place earlier. I had to manage the prestige of my country somehow, so I told her, “The train always starts on exact time but sometimes gets delayed on the way”. Again, she countered me with a pinching reply, “In France, trains start late but they always reach on time”.
Casual talks were going on between us. Suddenly she saw outside of the window and again I was in an embarrassing condition because of people, who were taking advantage of freedom . I cursed my government, why don’t they just build public lavatories. I think, she could understand my embarrassment, so she gave me a little empathic smile. But before she could utter a word, I confronted her with a question, Florence (Nice name na??), what are the prime movers of French economy? And yes, I hit it. She couldn’t even understand my question. I had to re-iterate my question. Now, it’s her turn to turn pale. She started giving me all vague answers like vegetables etcJ. Can you imagine, a graduate person from a developed country doesn’t even know, what the forces behind their country’s growth are. It was my turn to look at her with a vague smile. Just to save herself, she asked me the same question and I gave her a 20 minutes lecture on Indian economy.
A gist - Indian economy is the world’s second fastest growing economy. We are hoping to grow by around 10% this year. Many sectors, like IT, Telecom, Auto Ancillaries, Engineering, Manufacturing and Tourism are boosting our economy and taking it to a new orbit. All the big companies of the world are trying to establish their businesses in India so that they can get a piece of this big chunk of growth. Developed nations, which never used to talk about India 10 years back, are now all praise to the growth, which we are incurring. And I finally told her, this is why you are here because you might have seen advertisement of Indian tourism department in your country and she nodded in favor. Now, she was totally bemused by all the facts that I opened in front of her and embarrassed because of her poor awareness of her own country. It made me really happy and put me and India in a better place that time. Rest of the journey, she didn’t talk to me or may be, she could not. Did I really careJ ?? We finally wished each other Happy Journey, when train stopped at Agra and I was really at peace till I reach my home as a PROUD INDIAN.
