← Quora archive  ·  2012 Jun 23, 2012 08:52 PM PDT

Question

What do people in India do very easily which can't be done by people of other nations?

Answer

I saw this question a while back, and started writing an answer that I deleted because I was not satisfied that I could do the question justice even with a lot of words, due to subtle contextual things. So instead, I figured I'd come back and write an answer when I thought of the perfect example. I feel stupid that it took me so long, but here it is:

What do Indians do best?

Delivering lunches.

This is not a whimsical answer. The Mumbai dabbawallas are already renowned as a business efficiency case study, but the phenomenon (it is more than a business) is SO much more. It expresses pretty much everything that is good about India. It exemplifies the spirit of jugaad/lifehacker ethos that Samarth mentioned, for instance. It also captures, in one way or another, every non-snarky, non-jingoistic serious answer already posted.

Here's a TED talk by their CEO (a misleading title due to modern business gurus trying to retrofit modern management concepts onto something much older).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N...