Last year I had a class with grade 12 at Shiv Nadar School Noida and Gurgaon.

Among the topics we discussed was “Explaining India to a newly arrived foreigner - in 6 easy steps, in less than 5 minutes” .

I have often wondered - while returning from my short trips abroad – and stepping into the chaos of Delhi streets - how newly arrived foreigners try to make sense of India. Have a look at this video;  through a foreigner’s eyes!

So I made this into a quiz class  – with a nearly mathematical formulae written on the board to solve, as group work.

So here goes, Understanding India in 6 steps, clue ; Each step is related to the previous one:

1. 3 B
    
2. 75 %      <         35
    
3. 6-8 % GDP - last 20 Y
    
4. Huge O - Unfortunately, all the O is in U C
    
5. 250 M in 20 Y to UC
    
6. O has outstripped R and L
    

Anyone?

~*~

So let me now crack the code for you:

India has 1.3 billion people; 75% of us are under the age of 35; we are an extremely young country; with energy, enterprise and ambition. We have grown at a furious pace of 6-8 % of GDP year on year for over 20 years – that frantic growth rate has resulted in unbelievable opportunities. Unfortunately, most of the opportunities are in the towns and cities of urban India  (UC).  This has resulted in one of the largest mass migration in recent history – 250 million Indians moving to the urban centres in a short span of 20 years. We are in the midst of that now in 2018. Opportunity also has preceded any regulation, development or laws – the government just can’t keep pace, and when that happens, unregulated infrastructure growth, corruption, traffic chaos, untidy and filthy streets and all the rest of the chaos,  is inevitable.

But we are still a warm and friendly people – who sometimes can seem over warm and over friendly!

(It was quite a class – with many of my students cracking quite a few of the codes!!)