How Great Britain (Top Gear) sees us!

Top Gear,the most famous and widely acclaimed motorshow on this planet,aired their Christmas Special India episode on 28th December,2011. What is pretty surprising is that our country is repeatedly being referred to as an 'economic superpower' by Top Gear's host,Jeremy Clarkson. He,as fans would know,is infamous for his blunt critical views,sometimes even fanatical. Though gallantly portrayed, the other disbelieving inference is the distressed economic condition of Great Britain which was apparently the theme of the episode. This was the country that has ruled not just us but quite a portion of the world in history. I am sure Bhagat Singh and Subash Chandra Bose would be having a pleasant smile in heaven. The three British iconic cars(Rolls Royce,Mini and Jaguar) they were driving, are no longer owned by British companies. This is evidence to their troubled economy and the fact that Jag is owned by our very own Tata says something about our economy.

The host of praises did not end there.As their journey started from Bombay and ended in the Him-ma-layas traversing through Jaipur and Delhi,Jeremy was kind enough to note that the Dabbawallas of Mumbai have an incredible efficiency of 99.996 % without the help of any modern technology. He even described the hills as 'like Switzerland,only better'! He was surprisingly humble enough to describe the Great Britain as a small island nation.Lord Ganesh in place of the 'Spirit of Ecstasy' of the Rolls Royce was a gesture of appreciation of our culture by James May. All these are a refreshing change to the 'Bhuka Nanga India' perception of our country.

So why is most of our country deprived of the 'Superpower' status? Is Anna right,or the fact that we are questioning it is indeed the real issue - our attitude problem. Skepticism and being hypercritical are too set in our ways. For example,the Tata Nano is the biggest victim of something wonderfully ours being killed by us. Top Gear showed that the world's cheapest car emerged triumphant among the Ambassador and the Auto-rickshaw.The former - a half century old beloved mammoth and the later - a bare bone tuk-tuk(as the world knows) that failed to go uphill which ironically is often compared to the Nano. Sadly both of them are highly accepted by our society,while the technically superior Nano is mocked upon here.This car in London would be exempt of the congestion charge because of its less than 100g/CO2 green ways. We are so eager to bash a new product that we fail to see how brilliant it is and that the company has given effort to upgrade it to an even better product, is not on our mouths. Gandhi,Anna or the Nano way,all of us have to step up to the new image of our country so that next time the Big 3 come here,Jeremy wont have to point out the alarming death rates of our erratic roads.