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Thursday, January 18, 2007

Swarm of Bees

In spite of the dumb title, I have read decent reviews on Edward Luce's, the former Financial Times India correspondent, book on India's economic growth since 1991, "IN SPITE OF THE GODS: The Strange Rise of Modern India." I guess it's neo-European to assume that anyone who is spiritual can't be an economic being that leads to this book title.

While I hope to read the book some time soon, one description, as quoted in one review, of India as a society seems to make sense to me.

"At one point, Mr. Luce ponders India’s constant state of chaos and compares it to a swarm of bees. From inside the swarm, things look random, but from the outside, the bees hold formation and move forward coherently. " [Link]

Swarm of bees analogy is such an adept one, I think, for anyone standing on the side (or on the outside) looking in. Eventually, after a decade, when one looks back, one can see that the country does move coherently forward, despite all the current problems - social, political, and economical - as though there is some higher purpose, or that there is method, to India's daily madness.

2 comments:

Apun Ka Desh said...

India's swarm of bees, seem to be moving too slowly, and in various directions. If there is any direction at all - its because of private sector.

Education Sector is hindered by shackles of crap put on them by govt.

Same is the case of retail

Telecom sector shows promise pricesely because govt. couldn't shackle it enough. Where are the good old days of Telecom gone.. when a black dirty phone took 8 years of waiting... ugghhhh.

Chandra said...

I remember the old landlines and wait! Can you believe if mobile phones were invented in the 70s. We would have one company still building towers in Delhi with no coverage for the rest of the country and wait list for crappie phones for 5 years :)

I can't believe some people look nostalgic to that era!