How the bullcart gene has helped India become a superpower

Ever heard of lane dizzypline? This refers to the dizzying art of swerving across lanes, into spaces between moving objects, where you never thought a mosquito could get through. The thrill comes from the immediate effect of hearing the screech of brakes, wail of horns as the offended moving object reacts. But by then you are only a smoke on the horizon.

While the newbie may look wondrously at this phenomenon, the roots of this trend are very much hidden in the ancient art of riding the bullock cart. The bullock cart was the premier automobile in ancient India, the choice of discerning buyers who couldnot bear the look of ungainly donkeys. The control of the bullock rested in the hands of a no less noble person. If you were to look carefully at the obstacles that came in the way of the bullock cart, modern day Bajaj's and Suzuki's and Hero's would no doubt have turned a heel and taken a long trip home. These included for most part the cows, which unfortunately have not evolved even now, and still keep haunting their old places. Then came the narrow spaces between the houses, between which you had to go to carry the passengers across. Add to that an occasional desi dog that chased the foreigner, and the bullock cart had enough on its hands. The cart had to be built to such fine proportions, and controlled even finely, so that the passengers would only fall inside, and not outside the cart. The cart of ancient times had such a reputation, that Indian memoirs are full of legendary duels between neighbouring bullock cart clans, and cart races.

After centuries, we have the Hondas and Heros, Kawasakis and Bajajs and others instead of the bullocks. Our genes have changed to take the new wave of consumerism in our stride. But the bullock cart gene has survived all through, and given way to new hope for this ancient art. It helps us in overcoming unsurmountable obstacles like one-ways, footpaths, lanes, traffic dividers, potholes and pedestrians, traffic jams and traffic policemen.

On a larger scale, it has contributed to us so much that we ignore constantly. Where do you think our programming skills came from? It is the bullock-cart gene. It helps us in solving corner-cases in design, where the western folk would be looking for a traffic sign, but where we will charge ahead into the obstacle itself. It helps us in our coding styles, where coding rules are meant to be ignored, rather than kept. It has helped us achieve a marked reduction in employee costs, by hiring the lowest cost labour. We have taken a pride of place in optimisation techniques, mainly because we figured out how to optimise standing in queues long before they did. It is here that we treat the entire space as a single queue. Imagine if everyone were to stand in a single line, it would be too long! We puzzle as to why the western world cannot understand these simple principles. Because the bullock cart-gene marked us to be able to do anything as long as the bullock cart moved, we are in the path of becoming the true superpower, overthrowing all obstacles in our paths.

Whether we can hope to keep alive this desi art remains to be seen, but going by the road, I see a great future ahead for the dizzypline and the bullcart gene.