Do I know who are in my neighbor?

 

India shares its borders with 9 countries. I did a small survey to find out how many cities/regions we know in our neighboring countries.

SNo	India’s Neighbors	Capital	Number of Cities/Regions a Male of Age 55, could think of instantly	Number of Cities/Regions a Female of Age 55, could think of instantly	Number of Cities/Regions a Male of Age 25, could think of instantly	Number of Cities/Regions a Female of Age 25, could think of instantly	Number of Cities/Regions a Male of Age 30, could think of instantly	Number of Cities/Regions a Female of Age 30, could think of instantly
1	Afghanistan	Kabul	Kabul, Gandhar	Kabul	Kabul, Kandhar	-	Kabul, Kandhar	Chaklistan
2	Bangladesh	Dhaka	Dhaka, Chatgaon, Midnapur	Dhaka	Dhaka	Dhaka, Itajai	Dhaka	Dhaka
3	Bhutan	Thimpu	Thimpu	-	Thimpu	-	-	-
4	China	Beijing	Shanghai, Beijing	-	Shanghai, Beijing	-	Taiwan	HongKong
5	Maldives	Male	-	-	-	-	-	-
6	Myanmar	Naypyidaw (New), Yangon (Old)	Rangoon	-	Rangoon	-	-	-
7	Nepal	Kathmandu	Kathmandu, Biratnagar	Kathmandu	Kathmandu, Biratnagar	-	Kathmandu	Kathmandu
8	Pakistan	Islamabad	Islamabad, Karachi, Rawalpindi, Mustafabad, Peshawar, Lahore, Gilgit	Karachi, Sindh, Lahore, Islamabad	Islamabad, Karachi, Peshawar	Karachi, Islamabad, Lahore	Rawalpindi, Lahore, Punjab	Karachi, Lahore, Delhi
9	Sri Lanka	Colombo	Jafna, Colombo	-	Colombo	Colombo	Colombo	-

*those marked in red are wrong answer choices.

This is a very small sample space to draw any conclusions, however, it is enough to trigger a few thoughts.

First, I called my parents to find how many cities they knew in our neighboring countries. I documented my findings. The second call was to one of my college friends, who is preparing for some management entrance exams. The next thought was to check with a girl in same age window as my friend. So, I called my friend to find out, how many cities she was aware of. She was not available at that time so I called one school friend. It was interesting and unexpected to find that her knowledge was far less than that of a male in same age bracket. So be sure of this pattern for male and female gender, I called my elder sister and a colleague senior to me. To get this table prepared, I talked to about 10 people and four out of ten either did not have time to participate or did not respond to the questions. All of them to whom I talked on this are graduates and working at respectable places.

Though the sample space is too small, I think we can have one conclusion that we are very ill informed about our neighbors whereas, at the same time we know a lot about America and Europe which tells that we not ill informed about the world, it is just our neighbors who we don’t care much about. One more interesting finding was that, because we don’t hear much about our neighbors, we tend to forget even the little knowledge that we learn over time.

The irony is that we and most of our neighbors are always in news and the world is worried about us, and we do not even know as little as that capital of one of our neighbors (Myanmar) has been changed for about 2.5 years.

This indeed is a very humiliating discovery as well as a very important learning for all of us.