Exceptions are dangerous when looked at individually. To elaborate on this statement, a question we can ask ourselves is the following – how did the first of the laws of Nature or the laws of economics or any other law get discovered? Laws are discovered by statistical patterns in our “data set”. Having found a pattern, we occasionally find something deviating systematically from this pattern and then in our process of explaining the deviation, make our understanding of the law more subtle. Imagine ourselves formulating the laws based on a few exceptional elements. It should be quite dangerous. I want to dedicate this piece of my writing to all those poor people coming from outside our country who formulate preconceptions about our country based on the data available to them!
Whenever some bold representative of our country makes a mark in the international arena, the whole country acting under the action of the generous press join in celebration of the mark made. The adrenaline is high and so are the levels of pride especially when the world is appreciating us. These exceptional people who make their marks always show a culture that in turn is exceptional. But from a country of vast millions of people, whom do we blame for making popular only the most exceptional people? Nobody! It is obvious that only the exceptional are talked about and usually the exceptional have exceptional cultures. And since these exceptions are all that a man not of our own kin can watch, he forms a preconception of us based on these exceptions and in the rush of things, decides to come and see the masses!
The visitor stands on a street side of a decent locality of one of our cities. He is possibly waiting for one of our decent buses or cab to pick him up. Around he turns and notices the corners of all railings stained by rust. He soon realizes that it is not rust! And neither is it red oxide. It is but the byproduct of the typical man’s uncontrollable desire to chew tobacco leaves and spit the juice out wherever he goes! And thus the first shock. He then notices a man gargling on the street, a man spitting on the road side and another littering. With an expanded data set, he realizes that all his preconceptions are breaking apart!
He thinks that the torture is over when the bus finally arrives but he is so very wrong. Somebody told him that our country was making so much progress that every other man in the city was having a cell phone. But what he was not told is that the people do not know how to use an ear phone or control the volume of the built-in MP3 player. His entire bus journey is a tormenting experience as he is caught in the middle of the “battle of the volumes” wherein people attempt playing their favorite music louder than the other person. He consoles himself that what he had seen was a local phenomenon. He is therefore a bit optimistic about the train journey that he has to take.
It’s the same story on the train as well. But there are a few additions. He has caught a night train and has the naïve expectation that people on the train would have their dinners already. He then notices people taking out big boxes full of food. The people spend their time carelessly sharing their food within the group dropping some of it on the berths and some on the floor. Of course, that is bound to happen. But what is even more shocking is the callousness that follows. The food on the floor is left as it is. The food on the berths is just wiped out in the most ineffective manner! I shall spare the reader the trouble he will undergo when he walks into the toilet!
The country is developing! The country is developing! Why? How? Are you saying this because every second person you see in the city has a cell phone? Or it because the number of medals we won in the recent games is quite a large one? Or it is because some scientist got some international recognition recently? Or is it because you received an e-mail that talks about how your Prime Minister is possibly among the most academically qualified in the world? These are individual achievements but where is the collective culture that can be the true indicator of the overall development of the nation? How fair is it to measure the development of a nation by measuring the qualities of the Exceptional?