Sunday, August 20, 2006

I used to ride to school on my elephant

I just finished playing a marathon session of Civilization 4. I first started playing civ about nine years back. Civ 2 was what i stared with. Then went back to civ 1, and then moved to 3 and now 4. Now coming to what this is really about: In civs 1,2 and 3 the special unit for India was the elephant. The only thing those game designers knew about India was that we have elephants here. Also the Americans were what you called Industrious - enabling them to build roads etc much fastr.
Come civ 4, all that has changed. In civ 4 the American advantage is gone.
And surprise surprise - The Indian special unit is something called the Fast Worker. A worker who can mover faster and work faster than all the other normal worker units in the game. Now thats how far the BPO revolution has reached into the western psyche. I am sure all future science fiction movies will feature not only the customary hispanic, black, woman etc but also a back office operator who will book the tickets etc, process credit card transactions, maybe even a new super hero - BPO girl or Call centre Man..


Of course on a personal front the reason I have started posting again is kind of sad, but just for now its time for an Ode to Joy.