I am always amused when someone in my extended circle of acquaintances refers to my fellow Indians as intelligent. They base this on the usual clichés trotted out by NRIs, about how Indians run Silicon Valley. They also base this on random WhatsApp forwards that have increased over the past couple of years, touting our superiority in every sphere of human activity without any proof whatsoever. These inane forwards allow the senders to conveniently ignore the fact that there are few signs of intelligence among the 1.3 billion people who make up this country.

How is one to quantify the intelligence of a people anyway? Does one base this on the fact that a handful of them manage to find high-ranking jobs in the West? Does one count the Indian doctors and engineers abroad and simply assume that a majority of Indians train to become doctors or engineers? Also, does a career in medicine or engineering automatically qualify one to be referred to as intelligent? A little scratching of this surface is all one needs for these myths to vanish quickly.
Everything we do is based on a herd mentality. Our parents urge us to study the sciences, not because they believe that is an intrinsically worthy thing to do, but because their friends and neighbours urge their own offspring to do the same thing. Millions of us trod predictable paths set down in stone long before our parents consummate their marriages. In rural India, it is the administrative service for boys and early marriage for girls, along with the pressure of choosing law, medicine, or engineering in the largest city around. In urban India, it's the same emphasis on predetermined professions, the only difference being students are pointed towards higher ranking institutions or a university abroad.