DO US A FAVOR, MIGRATE!

Most of us are stymied by India's myriad mysteries. Why does Times of India, a once venerated brand, so desperately want to titillate? Why does a writer as talented as Arundhati Roy not write another book (she can continue spewing lyrical venom in Outlook on the side)? Why is Hyderabad airport not named after PV Narasimha Rao or NTR? Why does no one wipe their face when being interviewed by Rajdeep Sardesai, even though they frequently get sprayed with his spittle? To these popular mysteries, I am adding one more that has confounded me for long. But before that I will take you through an entertaining detour into a couple of other mysteries. 
   

Mel C (Spice Girls) sang along with Bryan Adams for the song "When You're Gone”. She is supposedly singing along, but what you hear is Bryan Adams singing and a second voice mumbling. Except in one part of the song, where she sings seconds on a higher octave. When you hear this part, you realize why it was so important for the Spice Girls to look good and dress attractively. The mystery is this. The world knows Mel C is a bad singer. So why did she  agree to sing with Bryan Adams and demonstrate, through comparison, exactly how bad a singer she is? 

Another interesting one: Why do companies not make and sell three wheel bikes instead of two wheel ones? Two wheel bikes are unstable and dangerous. You have to put your foot down to stabilize them when you stop. In a road accident, you are ten times as likely to die if you are on a two wheeler than in a car. If bike companies made three wheel bikes, they would be stable and dramatically reduce road accidents. Yes, style may be a concern. Who wants to be seen riding a bike that looks like an auto-rickshaw? But that is the thing. There are so many three wheel Harley Davidson type bikes that look awesomely cool and are stable. Surely, bike companies can design with these bikes as inspiration. 

Coming back to the one that has confounded me for a while. Why do people who can migrate out of India, choose not to? India is a densely populated country. There are too many people and too little land. We cannot improve the quality of our lives without freeing up land (example: The Chairman of Coal India Limited says "Give me land and I will give you coal". Shortage of coal was one of the reasons for the failure of the Northern electricity grid recently). We cannot free up land since there are millions of us living on the land. The solution: massive migration (take your parents, siblings and their families along). But not everyone can migrate. So those who can, who have a skill that other countries want, have a patriotic duty to do so. Every time people migrate, we have a little more land. In the 70s, we believed that we could produce only so many skilled people so they were a precious commodity to be retained within the country. But over the last two decades we have demonstrated the ability to produce large numbers of skilled people (growth of Engineering graduates has outpaced the growth in demand for them). 

So if you can, please leave. And where do you go? To the 30 countries with declining populations (Moldova, Russia, Japan, Germany etc.)

Before I say good night one last mystery. India has bad neighbours. India has nuclear weapons. And the Indian tectonic plate approximately follows India's national boundary. So why don't we do the obvious. Dig a deep trench along our border, put in nuclear weapons, do a controlled explosion that will separate the Indian tectonic plate from the rest of the Asian continent, attach a few huge nuclear powered outboard motors and propel the Indian tectonic plate southwards towards Antarctica. If you notice, Antarctica has a neat little "V" where the Indian tectonic plate can sail down and dock. 

This way we get better weather (it will snow in Chennai), we get lots of land (with global warming all of Antarctica will be habitable) and we rid ourselves of our pesky neighbours. 

Gotta run. I have to stock up on woollens, sleighs and sea-sickness pills before a billion Indian buyers drive the price up.