"Remember", the instructor said to the class,"a 35 year old American's brain and IQ is the same as a 10 year old Indian's brain.... Americans are dumb, just accept it. "
- pg 53, One Night in a Call Centre
Yeah right. Much as I would like to revel in the idea of Indians being mentally superior, tuning into Go 92.5 FM's morning show over the last week has brought home this sobering reality.
We Indians are right up there when it comes to "dumb". How else would you explain the pathetic performance of listener after listener in Go's '30 ka 30' contest (30 foreign holidays to be won in 30 days!)
The questions are absolutely junta-level and yet, contestants struggle and squirm.
Q: Arnold Schwarzenegger is the governor of which US state?
Ans: Minnesota?
Q: In which country is carmaker Hyundai based?
Ans: Japan?
Q: Complete the book title: Zen and the Art of _______ Maintenance
Ans: Could you repeat the question, please?
Competition is stiff. There have been instances where answering just 1 out of 4 such questions wins you that free trip. Sometimes both people get that 1 answer right and there is a 'tie-breaker'.
RJ Taraana herself got exasperated and had to clarify: It's luck, pure luck, who gets selected. So there. Don't blame us - we don't have a rigorous screening procedure. Boo hoo hoo to that!
Now you might argue 'low IQ' and 'poor GK' are two different things. Perhaps.
But Go 92.5 is aimed at people whom advertisers refer to as SEC (Socio-Economic Classification) A/ A1 category of listeners. The padha-likha class.
Lagta hai sab class mein chain ki neend so rahe the... !
Hay, still in 99% of schools/colleges people graduate without having aquired written/verbal english skills leave about knowledge of Arnold Schwarzenegger and likes. and i dont think it is necessary to know this. so people can be padhe likhe without knowing answers of questions you mentioned.
ReplyDeletealso leave about world an average american does not know about america itself.
A Chartered Accountant I know was recently asked this question: What did Mahatma Gandhi stand for? Pat camw his reply: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi!
ReplyDelete...I think we can excuse these listeners of Go 92.5 FM.
To be frank I don't like both the argument. The Instructor is just trying to boost the moral of the trainees. As for you I am sure only a select few in India would have really identified the correct answers. Even if I ask you to name some guy, Chief minister of some State I am sure there will be instances U will get confused. As for answers of these queries......even the best quizzers may get confused. Prepare right set of question for the kind of people you are targetting at. Need not say study prefrences of the so called A class people......u will get ur questions correct.
ReplyDeleteThe "elite" ya know the kind that read this blog...are few and far between.. ;-)) Prolly a few thousands out of the 100 crore Indian population. One of the tragedies of being well read and well educated is that we assume everyone's like us. But that's not how its in the real world you see. You have all sorts of people with all sorts of different aspirations and this is true across countries ....India, America wherever...
ReplyDeletedont agree with this article and Pentium77 is right.............u just cannot categorise a country of more than 110 crore people , not everyone can be well informed , well educated , well read ..........life is more than "one night at call centre".....a world where survival and daily chores of work take precedence these things hardly matter...we all must have known many people who have no knowledge about wats going on in the world but still are very sucessful.....IQ or EQ , Arnold or Hyundai...it doesnt matter, wat matters is survival...please dont compare us with English, Americans , Japanese as our human spirit is far more superior than anything aross the world.........we have our flaws but the spirit survives and triumphs.
ReplyDeleteNext time when I come to India, I will surely take part in such a quiz and win a foreign holiday. I dont think that 35 & 10 yr old wala funda is to be believed that easily. It just depends who is the person in context. Mostly in IS people just know what they are doing /what they are supposed to do. When it comes to computers or other gazette related stuff, people usually want to go through the easiest way, i.e calling call center rather than fiddling with the stuff.
ReplyDeleteThe Americans must be REALLY dumb.
ReplyDeleteNow Rashmi, this post of yours really disappointed me (generally an admirer of your posts). Here is my bit -
ReplyDeleteI guess general awareness and aptitude are two different issues (though not completely isolated). A farmer from a village might look blankly at us if one poses those questions to him. However deal with him on real life business he might turn out to (and often turns out to) be a most shrewd trader.
Intelligence is something beyond knowledge or data.
Lack of general awareness cannot be called dumbness, but it does shock you if someone doesn't know a thing you'd have thought the whole world knows----I recently met a lady who didn't know what I.I.T was!To give her the benefit of the doubt, she is 55plus, and belongs to a 'business family'.
ReplyDeleteI have to disagree...
ReplyDelete"Now you might argue 'low IQ' and 'poor GK' are two different things", you said it. The question is not of IQ, but of maybe computing skills and quicker thinking. We here are less used to calculators than our American counterparts, and hence we tend to do more mental arithmetic in our day-to-day situations than them. Maybe that quicker arithmetic percolates to other fields, both academic and industry-related, but the general awareness, etc. are a different story.
However, I too am amused about the kind of GK the 'A/A1' category of listeners possess. Maybe they could hold a contest titled, "Dumb and dumber" :)
My line of thought: always blame Americans for thinking we are a land of snakecharmers etc, that they are like ostriches who know not much about how the rest of the world lives. We aren't that different!
ReplyDeleteThere were two different arguments here... one abt 'dumbness' in the sense the book was referring to. And second, about lack of awareness or GK.
I didn't write this as a meaningful, insightful or significant post - more in a light hearted vein... Please mujhe se har baar chaand-taarey na expect kijiye.
Lastly, the foreign trips are mainly Bangkok-Pattaya type so don't feel too bad. It's cheaper to fly to Thailand than Delhi on some days. We cna do it on our own steam.
Now if those trips were to Sweden or Rio de Janeiro or some such exotic destination I might've exerted myself a bit more to keep dialling in!
Oh!!! Guess the Americans must be even bad..
ReplyDeleteAnalysis of a person who analyses the Indian youth.
ReplyDelete--------------------------------
"But Go 92.5 is aimed at people whom advertisers refer to as SEC (Socio-Economic Classification) A/ A1 category of listeners. The padha-likha class. "
--> I wonder why Americans had to be brought into the picture in the first place. Let us look at the mindset.
1. "Indians are dumb to not know these answers"
2. "We stereotype Americans to be dumb, look at desis, they don't even know answers to these, so we must be dumb"
Notice the common "stereotype" theme in the above statements.
"But Go 92.5 is aimed at people whom advertisers refer to as SEC (Socio-Economic Classification) A/ A1 category of listeners. The padha-likha class."
--> What exactly does it mean to be a "padha-likha" aadmi these days? Do all "padha-likha" folks have to know about Robert Pirsig?
"Now if those trips were to Sweden or Rio de Janeiro or some such exotic destination I might've exerted myself a bit more to keep dialling in! "
---> whoa... so the Bangkok-Pattaya types(not my usage) are not exotic enough? Familiarity Breeds Contempt?
I know I am being a pain-in-the-ass but hey, who said you can't.
i guess your post really touched a nerve, rashmi!
ReplyDeletethis radio quiz reminds me of a segment on a Jay Leno show... same GK type questions you'd think are so easy people would laugh at his face, except there were enough who didn't have a clue to make the asking funny.
the difference though is this - while the radio questions expect the world news section of a newspaper to be read at least infrequently, sample the Jay L questions: Name three oceans... which war did george washington fight...
blank faces all round. "I studied Literature in college, so wouldn't know," says one padha-likha type girl.
I guess she'd have known the Motorcycle Maintenance answer...
kudos to the "finding smart people to work with you" Bit, in ur profile!
ReplyDeleteCheers & Luck
这表明互联网普及后在线翻译的异军突起，翻译更为准确呢？对此，笔者做了一个小小的实验。我们分别通过GOOGLE、百度、雅虎这三个在线翻译深圳翻译公司软世界的关注。喜迎2008中国奥运年北京翻译公司了。深圳翻译公司搜索巨头谷歌、俄语翻译，
ReplyDelete韩语翻译广州同声传译百度对在线翻译广州翻译公司，上海翻译公司。，德语翻译，
的重视程度商务口译，同传设备已经说明一切。翻译是一门严谨不容践踏的语言文化。同声传译,凡购买中国移动手机充值卡深圳同声传译翻译主要以网络为基础深圳翻译.深圳英语翻译 ，无需制作炫丽的界面和复杂的操作功能深圳日语翻译，中国移动后台词库和网络搜索资源来获得最接近的翻译结果。所以 广州翻译公司，用户的体验不能停留同声传译如果广州翻译公司,韩语翻译的今天，同声传译偶尔会和翻译公司，东莞翻译公司。在线翻译工具的应用越来越凸显出强大的亲和力。法语翻译思同声传译设备租赁，是会议设备租赁，一项调查显示法语翻译思同声传译设备租赁，是会议设备租赁，深圳手机号码网，深圳手机靓号，有67.1%的用户同传设备出租会议同传系统租赁选择在线翻译会议设备租赁乘坐和所有客户一起分享奥运来临的喜悦。新疆租车，奥运喜充天”活动更多的是通过线翻译同声传译