Images of India: An Emerging Superpower? Hah!!
1. The Hindustan Motors Ambassador based on 1957 British Morris Oxford 2. Charing Cross Road in the hill resort town of Ooty [how quaintly English] 3. Young Indian women clad in colorful Saris 4. The nut and chickpea vendor 5.The Nilgiri hills of western Tamil Nadu 6. Decrepit railway coaches at a decrepit railway station 7. The Tea plantations of Ooty. Recently I visited the hill resort town of Ooty, in the extreme west of the Indian State of Tamil Nadu, about 2700 meters above sea-level I found many relics of the time when the British planters,soldiers and missionaries were here. A town with a name like Wellington, a road called Charing Cross, and a bookstore called Higginbottom's are a reminder of the days when the pallid English retired to the hills to escape the stuporific heat of the Indian summer. But more than the ghost of its ex-colonial status, I found in India many disturbing signs that make me doubt whether it should be put in the same league as China when we talk ...