for 9 March 2001. Updated every WEEKDAY.

Tim Cavanaugh
Special Guest Editor

Terry Colon
Art Director

Heather Havrilesky
Senior Editor

Joey Anuff
Publisher

firstly brahma is not the main god. and the whole idea of people being like schizophrenic from adopting american culture is kind of fucked up since in your article you're kind of assuming that they're all sort of trying to catch up with it anyhow without even remotely beginning to pay attention to how the people there think about stuff in the first place.

i mean, you're sort of missing the point which is that they aren't like thinking in the same terms to begin with and it can't be summed up with "brahma has four faces" either. i mean, for one thing, to have any idea, how different the whole SCENE is when you have that brain, you'd have to admit to yourself how much of what you think is influenced by being a christian, the denial of which is sort of the lynch pin of your whole secular house of cards.

Demmy Rooster
<demmy@mikpos.dyndns.org>

Hi Demmy.

I take it you've been to India?

Steve Bodow

I really enjoyed your piece on India's High tech boom. It is unfortunately all too common a theme to us in the 3rd world. Massive gaps in US and 3rd world online evolution are not closed through vicarious learning but rather through going through the same painful experiences in a more desperate way (Africans like us feel losses perhaps more acutely — especially given the buffeting we routinely take from currency speculation, disease and any number of macro-economic ills).

Anyway, you should come and check things out here some time, if you have a taste for the surreal.

Chris Deeks
<chris@inet.co.za>

I would love to come to SA and see what's going on — I imagine surreal only begins to describe, from what little I've read, though most of what's appeared in the US media of late has focused on the epidemic. Not much to laugh about there.

Best,

Steve Bodow

I have been here seven years, and I say that you caught it very well. It is rare to find foreigners writing on the India scene with any insight representing reality. Of course that is relative, but from my point of view, your article was spot on.

Gregory in Bangalore
<vu3pke@hotmail.com>

Thanks for the good word, Gregory. It's great to have confirmation from someone who has spent more than 2 weeks in country.

Best,

Steve Bodow

Yeah — Israel is just like India — only a few steps ahead- all the same issues, just larger — "we" want to be american, we build hi-tech parks where our hitech people can work quietly outside of the dirst and bustle of regular analog life, while sipping cappuccino...while ignoring the major problems that exist around us...I think you will find a lot of parallels, only a lot more get-quick-rich people.

I definitely think that Suck should send you here and also to Europe — Eastern Europe is also starting to emerge. Some companies are even thinking of setting up dev teams there. Another interesting angle here is the massive amounts of Russian immigrant developers in the market — some doing interesting work.

Something that non-americans will be sensitive to — when an american smiles at other cultures trying to become americanized — it can seem like the big uncle smiling at the native — when the natives laugh at themselves for trying to be like the uncle — then it is OK.

IN any case — I enjoyed the article — it was a good read.

amnon@earthnoise.com

America as big smiling uncle? A big stupid uncle, maybe, smiling because he's got bad gas.

Get quick rich,

Sucksters

Subject: I spy