I was sitting at the boarding gate waiting to board a flight with a burger and fries I just purchased from Macdonald’s. It was in New Delhi, India. After I took that flight and flew into the United States, the first thing I saw after immigration was a Macdonald’s. But it was not just the twist in hamburger I saw that day. I never thought that fusion of two different cultures felt so appetizing. Americanization just didn’t bring a new form of food to the historic land of India, it was much more. India is a land of vivid taste buds, an emerging economy and home to a very wrong conception about American culture and Americanization imported with it joy, the wrong conception about American life, and hard work, which in fact are shaping the Indian culture today.
As an Indian I have seen how local Indian flavors restricted American giants like KFC, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo to be successful in the Indian market. Who in the whole world ever thought that KFC would include more vegetarian options than chicken on its menu? In his article “In 2000 Years, Will the World Remember Disney or Plato?” Mark Rice-Oxley frames a picture in our mind through his writing, describing a usual American day but in London. Thus leading us to his main argument, in 2000 Years, Will the World Remember Disney or Plato? He claims basketball is climbing the ladder, becoming more important in our lives each day and it’s not just basketball, but we are under the skies governed by American soft power. We can find, through examples, in the article that world cultures in some countries have given their own unique twist to the overtaking American culture. For instance, Japanese have taken the ideas of Fast-Food and Hip-Hop and given them a new twist, according to their culture and lifestyle. But the article comes to an end with the same argument with which it started, will Disney survive the falling sand of hourglass the way Plato did? Likewise to what Rice-Oxley stated about the twist in American culture when it meets with different local cultures, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo came down with beverages that were to serve the taste buds of Indian people only. But these food firms not just bought a slice of America on an Indian plate. With them came a sense of joy, and happiness.
Some argue that American brands show dominance over local culture. For example, Brendon O’Connor, a Griffith University professor, argues in his article “Bored with USA?” that American brands are leading to the disappearance of local products and local pride in cultures, especially in Australia, his home country. I cannot say about Australia, but every Indian takes pride in his food and eating styles, we love our food more than anyone can even imagine. It’s just Indians cannot eat the same meal on the same plate every day. When people say let’s go to McDonalds, it’s not just an invitation for lunch or dinner, but an invitation of laughter, gossip and fun. Watching parents and their children having fun, drinking Limca, a Coco-Cola beverage, in a KFC is joy and the enigma behind that joy is Americanization.
However, joy is not the case when it comes to American media especially, Hollywood. Brendon O’Connor in his article “Bored with USA?” criticizes the way Australians are leading their life, becoming more American every day. He claims that they as Australians are so immersed in American culture even to their Calvin Klein underwear. Illustrations in his article show America to be a powerful nation and other countries as small and poorer cousins. Children, Connor states, want to lead life as shown in American sitcoms rather than understanding how their own society works. Parents in Australia, he says, are burdened under the fact that their children want to wear expensive fashion labels and girls want to starve to death to look like models and how bland the world would be if there won’t exist a heterogeneous society. A sense of nationalism is to be sparked in the locals and promotion of local goods should be spread, O’Connor argues to conclude. One of the most important fact that Brendon O’Connor writes about is the way American Sitcoms affect the life of people in Australia, which is true for India as well. In India, Hollywood and American media have had a significant role over the past few years. I remember myself when I was a kid, watching American films presented to me sexuality in a way that could be considered scandalous or immoderate to anyone of my age at that time. Hollywood as claimed by Martha Bayles, a humanities professor at Boston College, in her article “Exporting the Wrong Picture”, presents a negative picture of American people around the world. My perception of American sitcoms and Hollywood grew over the years, but the image of crime, immorality, sex and scandals didn’t leave my brain till the recent past. Majority of Indians don’t even know how different their country could be if they drive a few hundred miles from where they live. But everyone as an individual have the same opinion I had about the American culture which in fact resides thousands of miles away from them. Hollywood made the people believe in the wrong conception of American life and too such an extent that now Indians feel awkward to accept when they get acquainted true facts.
It is claimed that hard work is the key to success. As Colin Powell quoted “There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.” When the Indian government opened the market for multi-national firms for investment something miraculous happened. Akash Kapur, a New York Times journalist, in his article “How India Became America,” writes it this way, “The India I grew up in was dull, isolated and with limited opportunity… Now it is infused with an energy, a can-do ambition and an entrepreneurial spirit that I can only describe as distinctly American”. American businesses brought with them the knowledge, money and teachings from failure, but most importantly hard work. Thomas L. Friedman in his essay “It’s a Flat World, After All” quotes, “India got a free ride”, meaning Indian youth and local entrepreneurs which turned the tables for Indian economy learned from the challenges and failures that American entrepreneurs especially in Technology sector had to face when they started their firms. Overall, American investment gave India a free ride. Today, India is on its way to become an economic powerhouse, as stated in the most recent world economic charts by the International Monetary Fund. Subsequently, a new age Silicon Valley developed in the Indian city of Bangalore. One which is the success of the hard work of Indian minds and Americanization especially, by information technology giants such as Oracle, Google, and Microsoft to name a few. As shown in a video by BBC News that if we look at the top ten IT service companies you will now find four or five Indian companies in that. From my personal experience Flipkart, headquartered in India’s Silicon Valley, is homogenous to Amazon and based on practically the same format. The owner of the company used to work at Amazon until he moved to India to start his own. Today, Amazon and Flipkart both exist in the Indian market. Both the firms earn tremendous profit, but beating Amazon at its own game is what success is.
Brendon O’Connor states America to be a powerful nation and other countries as small and poorer cousins. But in my opinion, America gave to the Republic of India what a powerful cousin gives to his younger one. Before even modern America was born India comprised of twenty percent of the world GDP as show in the article “The Economic History of the Last 2,000 Years in 1 little Graph” published in The Atlantic. The cycle of growth and decline is a natural phenomenon. Americanization gave hope and motivation to the emerging powers such as India to grow back to a prosperous state. In the ancient and medieval times the India and China gave the world such theories and innovations that we today take for granted. America on the other hand is currently providing resources, thinking, and innovation, not just too Indian people but to the world. One day after centuries, we will take joy, hard work for granted and hopefully the wrong conception about American life would change and then the term Americanization will be lost in the pages of history. Some other culture some other day would again change the world the way India did and America is doing right now.

Work Cited
Bangalore: India's Silicon Valley. BBC News, 03 Sept. 2013. Web. 03 Feb. 2015.
O’Connor, Brendon. “Bored with USA?” International Views: America and the Rest of the World. Ed. Keith Gumery. New York: Pearson Education, 2007. 160-162. Print.
"The Economic History of the Last 2,000 Years in 1 Little Graph." The Atlantic 19 June 2012. Web. 2 Feb. 2015. <http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/06/the-economic-history-of-the-last-2-000-years-in-1-little-graph/258676/>.
Martha, Bayles “Exporting the Wrong Picture.” International Views: America and the Rest of the World. Ed. Keith Gumery. New York: Pearson Education, 2007. 172-177. Print.
Kapur, Akash. "How India Became America." The New York Times 9 Mar. 2012. Web. 1 Feb. 2015.<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/opinion/sunday/how-india-became-america.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0>
Rice-Oxley, Mark. "In 2,000 Years, Will the World Remember Disney or Plato?" International Views: America and the Rest of the World. Ed. Keith Gumery. New York: Pearson Education, 2007. 163-167. Print.
Friedman, Thomas L. “It’s a Flat World, After All.” International Views: America and the Rest of the World. Ed. Keith Gumery. New York: Pearson Education, 2007. 33-45. Print.