What devoured glamorous Pakistan?

[SMC]

What a lame discussion - who's viewed in what fashion in the West!!

I'll tell you how. Everyone knows that India is a poor country, but India has a "brand name" of its own. Apart from Yoga, there are things like Bollywood, Indian food (curry and others), exotic mysticism (for some), and of course, the 'Himalayas'.

That was about the "brand". And these days India is well known for taking American jobs (mainly IT, and spreading to other fields). You won't believe the amount of mindshare India has among working professionals (mainly in tech) here. Heck, I myself work in the IT field. Obama's rhetoric on the need for American kids to buck up and compete with kids from Bangalore and Beijing is rubbing the whole thing in - India has a different image now, when compared to a decade back.

Pakistan, unfortunately, has a severe image problem. Pakistan is associated only with terrorism and terrorists, backward Mullahs, tribal wars, and so on. Don't jump all over me for saying this guys, you know this is the truth.

That may be how you view India, but the people I come across view India mostly along the lines of Africa. The fact that you're an American on Pakistani forum means you probably are an American who has some interest in South Asian affairs and hence don't represent the general American public who think of Asia in general as a **** hole, barring a few places, and in general don't care about South Asia. They're more interested with China, Mexico, Latin America, Iran, North Korea, Al Qaeda, etc.

And btw, this image thing is something that Indians do. They have a severe complex regarding what westerners think as they deep down believe that westerners are superior to them. How westerners think about such and such, etc. Many of them even use arguments such as "since westerners in general believe x, x must be true". Pakistanis don't tend to care as much about how westerners think about them.