Sunday, July 26, 2009

Are Indians lazy?

I was chatting with my Indian friend over a lunch, suddenly he asked me, "Do you think we are lazy?" I said, I don't know the correct answer for this accidental question. He told me, he thinks we are generally lazy compared to other hardworking races in Asia. I said to him, may be man your right. So after returning from lunch, I gave a little thought to that crazy stereotypical question. Is he really right? Flipping through some facts, it seems Indians do less physical work than others and we are more prone to type 2 diabetes. These results were published in BBC health section.


If we look at studies which requires us to have lot more will power than anything else, we don't lag behind others. But certainly don't slog continuously than other Asians in general. Though there are some total nerds in India but those people utterly don't do exercise and tend to be overweight. I knew lot of my friends back in chennai play video games for straight eight to nine hours but if we ask them to sit and study or do some sports they flunk it (not in studies though). So what might have caused us to have such an attitude.

I think our family structure might have contributed to some extent where only one parent (especially father) tend to work and others sit and relax. Our social structure doesn't permit adolescents to do part time jobs or other works. But contemporary young people are health conscious and also have power to drive so this attitude may change very soon. There are spoil sport like video games and computer games might hinder the change of attitude. Any thoughts to this?



16 comments:

  1. @velan

    as u said the physical work exerted by Indians by exercise or sports is far less compared to all other people which actually shows in the medal counts. 1 or 2 in a country of billion is obviously is a shame. This mainly is dedicated to the parent's attitude in india who ask the children only to study but don't ask them to play also which is atrocious. So the people in india lose their subconscious mind and try to work their ass-off in studying only. The other countries in the world promote lot of other type of jobs basically e.g. u can learn swimming,photography etc.. and earn a living out of it. So the people their actually search for other modes of living whereas in india, if u do this, u will be given a scant respect in the society unless u get ur compliments published in celebrity tabloids. So the people obviously take a narrow-minded approach of killing their time with the books, books and books thinking that this is the only way of succeeding. The major defect is the way the people are brought up by the parents. If the parent is open-minded and encourage the child to do whatever they want, they will naturally try to shed their conservative approach and take, think in lot of ways how to make a living in a broad way.

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  2. @Karthic I think you gave a pretty decent outlook on our laziness attitude and bookworm tendencies. So ur blaming it on the society in general. May be ur true. Let see from other comments

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  3. When you talk about exercise and sports, actually there are two games, basketball and football, which are very popular in China. So kids and youths all can get involved in these two activities. Hence, I think if the government can advocate some kind of sports on TV or through other ways, this can help the sports spirit spread in the whole country a lot.

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  4. @Jin Xianfei As an Indian I personally believe china is far ahead of us in sports. It may take centuries for us to reach your level (LOL). Yes, ur last statement is quiet valid because in India sports are not treated equally with studies. It is a common perception that sports is only chosen by looser. Karthic has already validated this statement elaborately. We need good sponsors to encourage kids to try sports.

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  5. @ xianfei

    i still don't know how come u don't play any sport,eat rice and not obese,able to maintain super sexy bod?? plz share ur secret health tips to the readers so that v can benefit:)

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  6. of course. what do you think??? if not, i wont be in singapore man...

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  7. @elamaran, so you agree with my friend that Indians are lazy. Any arguments to validate your point of view?

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  8. It's also quite interesting that our favourite game is cricket, which has to count as one of the laziest sports there is... :)

    I think your arguements are quite right... It's just the conclusion that's wrong. Being lazy is different from not being sports minded. The way kids study for their boards and later on for CAT, etc. shows that we aren't really lazy ppl. It's just that ,even historically, sports never was our thing. Most of the great personalities from India, all the freedom fighters, religious leaders,mathematicians, etc. were all intellectuals but not much into phyical activity. In fact, even the Indian form of "exercise", Yoga, is not based on exerting yourself and jumpiing up and down and exercising like it is for the western cultures, but it has been proven that it is just as effective , if not more, in keeping us fit and healthy.

    My point being, we indians believe more in doing things effectively and efficiently and this involves less exersion... this shouldn't be mistaken for laziness...

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  9. @Vaisagh I want to elaborate the last argument since I didn't ponder much so as to reduce the length of article. I accept kids study hard for boards and later on for entrance examinations. The reason behind why most kids study their way hard is not because they really love to do it because their parents pressurize them to do so. This is to blame it on the society because when there is any function or festival relatives who come to house don't keep their mouth shut.

    The first thing they ask sarcastically is how ur child studying and they start irritating the child by saying other's achievement, this provoke the parents to take harder steps and kids lose his/her opportunity for sports. Regarding our sports being less exertive is not true. In ancient times, esp southern India we used to play kabadi which is more exertive and also "bull run". With regards to cricket, british people drived cricket from "Kittipul" which is extremely exertive and it is not bound by circle boundaries like cricket. I remember I ran for 5 KMs for lossing the game (lol).

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  10. is it actually called bull run in english?? sounds funny... :)

    And yea.. Kabaddi's still played... you know we get all those medals in the asian games for it. and Kittiput should be gilli danda... I know the games, but generally I was just asking for a clarification of what you mean by lazy? compared to other Asians like Japanese and Singaporeans, we are lazy, I admit that... But compared to western cultures, we're not really that lazy ... I mean we don't take siesta's in the middle of the day just because it's hot or go waste random days on the beach if we have a job...

    Anyway, I prefer to call myself "laid back and relaxed" and not lazy...

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  11. @ Vaisagh I just translated Jalikattu into Bull run. I think the literal translation is wrong though lol. U got my point actually. I compared only to Asians not to westerners and also it was not my point that Indians are lazy it is only my friend's opinion. I still consider we are ok.

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  12. A chinese friend of mine commmented that Indians are viewed to be lazy and not very good at their work. I think "laziness" comes from
    1) a social habit of putting pleasure seeking above everything else
    2) Middle class Indians having servants to do everything
    3) A caste based society with deeply specialised job functions- people cannot and don't like to multi task.
    4)Absence of an achievements driven society
    5) A shoddy school system that does not teach job oriented skills.

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  13. @Sudipsten Thanks very much for augmenting the thought process on why Indians tend to be lazy. I totally agree with most of the points u've cited above. I hope since u understand the system well u may do something to change it. Mere talking is practically useless. Actions speak louder than words.

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  14. In India,

    1. We are financially not strong.
    2. Earnings and social status are depending on the job profile.

    Because of the above two points,
    1. people choose the jobs which they are really not interested.
    2. Just they want to earn money or/and status.

    When a person is doing his job which he is really not interested and just wanted to do it because of other reasons, he will show "laziness".

    And on top of these, we have enough freedom (compare to other nations) to do the things which we want. Hence we are like this.

    Mostly (good) education is making us to come out of these labyrinths (Chakravyuha).

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  15. sorry friends if anything wrong plz excuse me.(nope friends indian's were not really lazy persons they are dare devile's.when time comes,then only they approach to their work un'till then they wont waste their valuable time.

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  16. Hi friends i am new in this forum, in my view in present Indian are more hardworking than persons of any other country they work more than 5o hours in week, which is more than any other country

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