Look At What India Can Teach The USA!

My friend Asha works at the National Institute of Health in Washington, DC. Her boss had asked her to find out why India’s most powerful people had not been affected by swine flu, known here as H1N1. She asked me for my views on this interesting subject. I said that the reasons are obvious. She insisted that I address a departmental meeting. I agreed since I enjoy enlightening Americans on such subjects.

Here is the gist of my talk:
Indian politicians have a habit that is much discussed in the US but is rarely practiced. Several studies by your institute have shown that many ailments are caused during the patient’s stay in a hospital in the US. Paradoxically doctors in this country, far from healing a patient actually cause diseases. If the habit I am referring to is acquired by hospital staff, the savings to the healthcare bill in the US will be at least $100 million a year and I am not counting the loss in terms of leave of absence, fall in productivity loss of morale etc.

At this point the audience got impatient and asked me to please enlighten them about this simple habit! I said that I was alluding to the habit of frequently washing hands! Indian politicians are known to wash their hands almost hourly. For example Laloo Yadav has washed his hands off the fodder scam and the daily allegations of misrule and corruption during his 15 year rule in Bihar. Six months from now Mayawati will wash her hands off the allegation that she had used tax taxpayers’ money for self aggrandizement by building statues of herself on every street corner in Uttar Pradesh. This is why India’s ruling class has remained unaffected by swine flu.

“What else can India teach the west?” I was asked. At this point I drew the audience’s attention to an Indian tradition that the west should aspire to emulate. In the west it is common for people to greet each other by kissing, rubbing cheeks and embracing. I suggested that they abandon such unhealthy practices and adopt the Indian namaste or the Muslim Adab arz hai.

The audience nodded appreciatively and wanted to learn more from India. I told them about the results of some informal research I had been doing in India and the US. In the Tamil Brahmin community it is customary to invite a priest to conduct ceremonies and pay him in cash and kind. The latter usually includes dhotis and towels. I was curious to know what the priest did with the over hundred dhotis and towels he receives every year. He replied that he sold them to a textile shop and received cash! I realized that I may well have bought the same dhotis and towels repeatedly. Recycling indeed!

In Mumbai one sees youngsters selling flowers at street corners. Readers may not know that these flowers are taken from graves where people leave garlands in memory of loved ones. Recycling again!

In the US, Indians customarily offer bottles of wine to the host of a party. These are inexpensive and are easy to pack and carry. I performed a small experiment. I made a small mark at the bottom of a bottle indicating my ownership and date of purchase. Then I found something revealing about Indians. The same bottle kept coming back to me every six weekends — it is on the weekends that parties are held. The interesting thing is that I got back my wine bottle from a totally different person! Indians here recycle the same gift over and over again. Talk of 6 degrees of separation.

How about shaking hands ? I suggested that American bureaucrats can learn several lessons from their Indian counterparts, known as babus. These babus are not as obese as Americans. Why? American bureaucrats consume enormous quantities of high sugar coke. Indian babus are content with chai paani. At the most he will accept bachhon ke liye mithai.

The babu does not like to shake hands since his palms have been greased as a protection — against the scorching Indian sun. This accounts for the absence of swine flu among bureaucrats in India.

Indians are ambitious and will seize any opportunity to go ahead in life. Right now millions of Indians have lined up outside the American Consulates in many cities in India. They refuse to listen to the consular officials shouting, “PLEASE DO NOT APPLY FOR H1N1 BECAUSE IT IS NOT A VISA.”