'The diplomatic observer in me rejoiced in the clear and unmistakable evidence about the spread of wealth to hitherto unconventional regions and individuals in a fast changing world.'
'Brazil has always been the favourite team for Indians for decades. 43 per cent of Indians regard Brazil as their favourite,' says B S Prakash.
Memory was the most important endowment and instrument in the process. And here was someone, questioning the very value of memory?
'Where does the energy and the compulsive gaiety come from, I begin to wonder despite the mind numbing sounds.'
As one surveys the changing face of mulilateralsim today, we see mutation and multiplication. The underlying reality is that the world is multipolar and with more poles, you tend to get more constellations.
'Think of all the school children saddled with books, voracious readers with huge appetites for current best sellers and so on, and you can see the potential one day in India,' says B S Prakash.
'Delayed gratification' is a fancy psychological phrase for an old lesson to forego immediate pleasures for later benefits. 'No gain without pain.' We have been brought up by our grandmothers believing in this. 'Don't waste all your time on the movie/television/cricket. Work now and if you do well, rewards will come later.'
The knowledge component and managerial competence gives Indian companies an edge to be competitive, says B S Prakash.
Is football to Brazil, what is cricket to India? No. It is much more, says India's Ambassador to Brazil, B S Prakash.
Apart from lack of regulation and risk assessment, there seems to be another factor at work as to why prudence and sense failed in such matters. New tools and concepts such as leverage, arbitrage and debt swaps which created virtual growth, ie, growth seen on the computer screens in banks without a corresponding reality in terms of brick and mortar or goods and services, contributed to the bubble and the illusion, says B S Prakash.
'First, it reminds us about our essentially narcissistic nature. The basic premise is that others care about what we are doing and hence the instinct to broadcast. Second, the incessant urge to remain connected, to be part of a network that modern communications tools are driving us towards.'
That India would get ruled by the British and not by Portuguese except in some parts was a historic destiny. Why, even Mumbai was given away as a dowry gift by the Portuguese, when their princess, Catherine de Braganza married Prince Charles of England in 1661.'
Being in the heart of the Silicon Valley was an education in itself. Today it is the most exciting area of synergy between the US and India and Indian achievement.
This financial world, experts now tell us was sometimes almost a make believe, a maya, which had got disconnected with the real economy of homes and factories.
BRIC represents the recognition that new perspectives were emerging in the world, that these emerging economies had their own weight and views.
The encounter made me think once again of the force and total hold of Facebook and Myspace on generation next.
I had been told that academic fashions are even more fickle and consequential than sartorial fashions. It is as important to keep up and know the current trends in discourse, and a researcher still stuck in colonial studies is as lost as a designer bringing out mini-skirts when the hemline is two inches below the ankle, says B S Prakash
I look for signs of India or Indians. And see none. To live in this day and age without the daily diet of Bollywood masala, cricketing capers, and fellow argumentative Indians seems strange.
'Behind and beneath a book lying unbought and unread in a bookshop there is an entire universe of ambition, aspiration and frustration.'
Pearls of wisdom are often attributed to the cabbie who comes up with profound insights on the outcome of elections or the course of the conflict, or what have you.
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