~ Seal of approval ~

Last week I saw people sharing an article about an American student's experience in India across Social Media. 

Today another student has expressed her experience during her stay in India.

Am sure anyone on travelling or studying or working in India will have perspectives about the country, culture, people, food, history, et al. Each one goes through different experiences - good, bad & ugly. The perspectives about an experience could be based on various factors - family upbringing, economical status of the individual, knowledge about place, food, people, etc. It varies on many degrees. Its not WYSIWYG.

Am sure, as Indians, we ourselves are highly opinionated about people from different parts of a State. Forget about our perspectives with people / culture from various parts of India. So, our perspective about foreigners would be a very skewed. 

I don't really understand the need of such hype or stereotype the subject. I feel, we don't need Western review to highlight the lows or the highs of the country. Most of us, Indians, are already aware of the circumstances & behaviour. Be it treating women / men / elders / disabled, race, cultures, etc. We do nothing about it to bring any change in self or those around us. 

As M K Gandhi said, "Be the Change you wish to see in the World". We need to drive that change what we wish to see in the world around us. Do your bit, before stereotyping / preaching others.

Over the weekend, while at traffic signal near SadhashivNagar, observed a hoarding which says something like this - "Learn yoga from Internationally certified yoga teacher". Do you figure oxymoron in it? Yoga & International :) 

Yoga, which has its origin in this country, we Indians still look for the seal of approval from elsewhere. 

Such is our obsession with Western approval for the scheme of things in life or otherwise. We need to stop looking elsewhere for doing what is right. Just do it!

*iReport is running on Jive. Jive is a collaborative product. In my previous job, have helped build customized enterprise communities. The technologist in me makes me observe the underlying platform :)