Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Sehdev vs. BBC



Ok, all you guys who have seen the movie Swades, remember this subtle character called Sehdev ? Well... I ll give you a brief introduction of the whole setting, and how this struck me hard while I was in London.

In the movie SRK is a hi-fi scientist/engineer in NASA who is heading a project involving placing a satellite into the space which monitors some Global Precipitation blah blah... and predicts the weather conditions in a much more rigorous way. He returns to India to visit his home village, which is a proper underdeveloped place both infrastructure and people wise. So when he visits the village head man, he is asked what he does. He says that he does weather prediction through usage of satellite and stuff. The headman is a bit confused, seeing this as a simple task, and says " Hamra Sehdev bhi wahi karat hai" (Even our Sehdev can do it). Then there is this country villager called Sehdev who steps forward and looks at the sky and tells that the sky will be clear for the next few days and there will be a lot of sunshine.

In London, I was amazed at the way BBC broad casted its weather prediction prediction pretty accurately telling about the possibility of rains and sunshine ahead for the next whole week. And everyday it would always go according to the forecast of BBC.

Now thinking about the relevance of this situation with that in Swades, the wetern world relies on a prediction as that of BBC which is the outcome of the scientists like the one SRK played int he movie; while in India it doesnt matter whatever prediction anyone makes, it rains when it rains and it shines when it does, so weather prediction is as easy as words coming from the country villager Sehdev with relevance to India.

Of course, my point is just on weather prediction and not to extend the comparison between Sehdev and SRK to be as similar to the comparison between India and the western world... It makes me wonder whether I should even view everything about India that way...

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