Why are Indians so earnest?

Oscar Wilde's 'The Importance of Being Earnest', is a comedy masterpiece about two flamboyant bachelors who secretly lead double lives. Using aliases and false alibis, the pair woo respectable ladies by day and cavort in music halls at night. As I sat through an hour long session with members of the CII-Yi London delegation on Thursday 25 June 2009, I wondered if they would be carousing in the music halls of London later, because, boy......the going was “heavy weather”!

The CII-Yi National chairman’s speech was followed by a Q&A session where one attendee (not me, for once) had the temerity to ask about the involvement of women within the organisation and the empowerment of women in India. The reply was a virtual tongue-lashing from Bhairavi Jani, the National Vice Chairman. What stunned the audience into submission was the sheer number of facts and figures she was able to recall – female heads of major Indian companies, ratio of men an women in the CII-Yi organisation, key female icons of India…..I wondered if she had eaten a feminist encyclopaedia!

CII-Yi is undoubtedly a worthy organisation with nearly 1000 members in 18 chapters (regions) in India, but chock full of very bright, very earnest lawyers, accountants and businessman, the London chapter is sadly destined to achieve great dullness in a very short space of time

Why are Indians so earnest, I wondered? Is it genetic? Is it environmental? Can we blame Darwin’s theory of ‘survival of the most earnest’? I have no answers, only very earnest questions!


Click below for the ‘CII-Yi considers launching a UK Chapter’ story

http://www.redhotcurry.com/business/2009/cii-yi-25062009.htm