How about the High Road to a Prosperous Future??? I thought most forks had three prongs !

Actually, I don't quite agree with that. Our main problem today is corruption, greed and laziness. We are already greedy, in that we want to make money with little or no effort. In spite of being endowed with abundant resources, we are unable to progress because of corruption, greed and laziness at all levels of administration and government and also among the general public.

I prefer to look at the Japanese model of quality that we have been seeing all these years: quality at an affordable cost. I do not define quality as greed. What we need is discipline and a sense of fairness. That does not translate into greed.

We Indians are singularly lacking in quality in each and every thing that we do. We try to console ourselves that we are behind because we are "not greedy". But we certainly are greedy already; we just don't want to give ANY value for money. We want to make our money with little or no effort.

With Chinese goods you get A HELL OF A LOT MORE VALUE FOR YOUR MONEY than you get with Indian goods. Therein lies the difference. I have been in engineering, and just give me one sample of any Chinese fast-selling product and an equivalent Indian product and I'll point out to you ALL the reasons for the Chinese product to sell while the Indian one doesn't.

Whenever I call up home and have discussions with my parents, this fact is brought starkly to me. The other day they wanted me to take back a bottle of vinegar with me the next time I went back home. The reason being that you cannot get good vinegar over there. It is just like water.

Vinegar is nothing but acetic acid diluted with water. These days it looks like they add just about one drop of acetic acid to a large bottle of water. Just how much more greedy than that can you get?

I have gone to shops in India where there are no customers whatsoever, and the shop guy would ignore me completely. He would be looking in every direction except towards me. He is too goddamned superior to even look at me. In his eyes he is a great businessman, and I am a mere pathetic little customer clutching a few coins in my hand. We Indians have our huge inflated egos that we like to project at each and every opportunity.

I don't buy Chinese products because "Chinese are greedy". I buy them because they are good value for the money they cost.