Letter to Ansh — 6

Dear Ansh

It is 4 30pm on Sunday 10th of February. You are still visiting your grandparents in India and I miss you very much. I am finding ways to fill up my time and have taken up a bit of Yoga and also started with swimming lessons. Once you come back we will start you on swimming as well. It is a very important skill and knowing it will mean you will be able to save yourselves and potentially others in life threatening situations. But beyond that Australia has some of the best water sports and activities in the entire world. As a good swimmer you will be able to enjoy them to the fullest.

While in India you will visit a lot of relatives, lot of uncles, aunties and a number of older grandparents, grand uncles and aunts. You will be asked to touch their feet, most likely by your mum or your immediate grand parents who will accompany you. It is tradition in India to touch the feet of elders and seek blessing. The thought process is it inculcates humility among the young and the older generation then in return extends its blessings and goodwill.

You unfortunately atleast as of now wont have a choice about it, you probably wont even understand or remember any of this when you grow up and read this letter. But at some point in your life you will have the choice. Life is all about the choices we make, and you will have to decide what kind of a person you want to be, what do you believe in and what sacrifices you are prepared to make in order to stand up for what you believe in.

Personally I abhor the ritual touching of feet. I would rather embrace others in an equal relationship of friendship and goodwill rather than bow down to any one or expect any one else to bow down to me. But when surrounded by the extended family especially on my side of the family (not your mother’s side which thankfully is far more liberal), you will find that I will rather follow the tradition of touching feet rather than making a fuss of it. It is too much to argue about it with people who are already set in their thinking and given the geographical distance I do not have to see them as often anyway. I do however still prevent any one from touching mine. That much I can control.

While eventually the choice whether or not to follow this ritual is yours, I will explain why I have a problem with it.

India and most cultures of the East are rigid hierarchical societies. Authority flows top down, you do things because someone told you to do them and without question. You are expected to know your place in the order of things and put your head down and play your part. The education system prizes rote learning and memorizing things. Asking WHY is frowned upon and sets you as an outcast.

No meaningful progress is possible in such societies, Asking why is the basis of all innovation and progress. If you do not question why certain things work the way they do, then you will never understand them fully and will not be able to suggest and bring about improvements to them. If you simply follow rote learning and ritual you will find that life does not play to a script. Circumstances change rapidly and scenarios emerge that have never been taught to you.

In life what matters is your ability to deal with unpredictable and unforeseen circumstances, understand the gist of them and react them accordingly. All of this requires a thinking mind, a mind that is able to question WHY?

The innocent act of bowing down and touching your elders feet is the first step in the slippery slope of neutering your ability to think critically. You may think I am overreacting, but ask yourself, why has India with such a huge population and massively intelligent people has not seen any major invention in the last several hundred centuries? Why do Indians tend to prosper when they travel overseas when they are put in a non hierarchical society while in India they are unable to achieve their full potential.

Why is India not able to produce a Google or Microsoft or Skype despite having the biggest pool of computer science engineers? Why do India’s IT providers focus on doing the menial repetitive work as a cost arbitrage rather than creating new products and systems to generate new value?

The answer is creating a product is the act of going from zero to one, it requires the ability to look at things and say there is a better way to do all of this. And then just going ahead and building it. The society that creates a culture where people will be encouraged to question things will always come up on top vs a culture that prizes rigid ritual and hierarchy.

The choice of which direction you take will always be yours, whichever direction you take I will always love you.

Your father

Moresh